The forest did not explode into chaos.
It folded into it.
Sound collapsed first. The wind that had been whispering through pine needles only moments before went abruptly still, as though someone had pressed a hand over the world's mouth. Even the distant rush of the mountain streams faded, swallowed by a thick, unnatural silence.
Then the cultists began to chant.
They did not raise their voices. They whispered.
Dozens of soft, overlapping murmurs drifted through the trees, syllables that felt wrong simply to hear—jagged, uneven sounds that made the air tremble as if reality itself were recoiling from them. Miren's skin prickled. Her stomach twisted, not from fear alone but from something deeper, more instinctive.
A warning.
They are calling something, Arkel said. His presence tightened inside her, no longer warm but alert, like a drawn blade.
The silver-tattooed woman lifted her hands, palms glowing faintly with dark sigils. Her expression was serene, reverent.
"The Star-Bound Blade does not belong to one girl," she said. "It belongs to destiny."
Seren moved in front of Miren, his body tense, weapon drawn. "Whatever you're summoning, stop it."
But the chant had reached its final cadence.
The forest floor cracked.
Not split—peeled.
The soil and stone curled back as though the ground itself were shedding its skin. From the opening beneath, a thick black light spilled upward, devouring color, devouring sound. The air grew cold enough to sting.
Something moved beneath the earth.
Trees shook violently. Birds erupted into the sky in a frantic storm of wings and terrified cries.
Miren clutched her chest. "Arkel—"
That is not one of mine, he said, his voice low and strained. That is something older.
A claw tore free of the ground—vast and shadowed, as though cut from night itself. Then another. A shape hauled itself upward, its form unstable, flickering between beast and smoke and something far worse. Eyes like burning embers opened within the shifting darkness.
The cultists dropped to their knees.
"Behold," the silver-tattooed woman whispered, her voice trembling with awe. "The Devourer of Relics."
Seren's face drained of color. "That thing feeds on magical bonds. It tears apart contracts, oaths… even soul-links."
Miren's blood ran cold.
It can tear us apart, Arkel said. Not just from each other—from existence.
The Devourer let out a roar that did not travel through the air so much as through Miren's bones. It lunged.
Miren did not think.
She reacted.
Light surged from her—not in a beam, but in a wave. The air rang like struck crystal. The ground beneath her feet flared white and hardened, turning to glassy stone in a spreading circle.
The Devourer shrieked as the light washed over it, recoiling as if burned.
Seren stared at her. "You didn't just channel the sword… you became it."
Miren shook, staring at her own glowing hands. "I didn't mean to—"
You remembered, Arkel whispered. Just for a heartbeat.
The cult leader laughed softly. "Yes… that's it. The echo."
"The echo of what?" Miren demanded.
"The Star Sovereign," the woman said. "Your true title. The one who once ruled the blade. The one who bound herself to it."
Miren's heart stuttered. "That's not me."
"Oh, it is," the woman replied gently. "Your soul wears a lie. But it remembers."
The Devourer lunged again.
Seren shoved Miren aside, his blade flashing blue as he struck at the creature's shadowy form. The impact threw him back like a doll, slamming him into a tree with a sickening crack.
"Seren!" Miren cried.
Blood ran down his temple as he struggled to rise.
Something in Miren tore.
Do not let it touch him, Arkel urged.
Power roared through her veins. "Get away from us!"
The Devourer hesitated, sensing something in her now.
The cult leader's voice cut through the chaos. "Do you know what happens when a Star Sovereign remembers who she was?"
"Stop!" Miren screamed.
"She remembers the war," the woman continued. "The betrayal. The one who loved you… and died for you."
The words struck like a blade.
A memory exploded in Miren's mind.
A man beneath a sky of falling stars. Blood on his lips. A smile that was still gentle even as he collapsed toward her.
No.
Yes, Arkel whispered.
Light and shadow collided, ripping through the forest.
And in that moment, Miren understood something terrible:
The world was not afraid of her because of what she might become.
It was afraid because of what she already had been.