The village of Oakhaven didn't ask for much from the world. Tucked into the emerald armpit of the Elderia mountain range, it was a place where the biggest news was usually a particularly stubborn cow or the price of salted pork. The air here was different—cleaner, heavy with the scent of pine needles and damp earth, a far cry from the suffocating, ego-drenched atmosphere of the Academy's spires.
Market day was in full swing. Stalls groaned under the weight of oversized pumpkins and hand-knitted woolens. Old men sat on porches, nursing pipes and trading lies about the fish they'd almost caught forty years ago. It was a symphony of the mundane.
"You can't catch me, Lily! You're too slow!"
A young boy's laugh rang out near the edge of the treeline.
Lily, a ten-year-old with a mess of chestnut hair and eyes like polished obsidian, stuck her tongue out. "I'm not slow, Toby! I'm just giving you a head start so you don't cry when I win!"
She wasn't looking to win a race, though. She was looking for the ultimate hiding spot. She knew the forest edge like the back of her hand, but today, she felt bold. She pushed past the usual boundary—the "Old Sentinel," an oak tree struck by lightning a century ago—and slipped into the deeper, greener shadows where the sunlight filtered through the canopy in dusty, golden pillars.
'If I hide behind the Great Roots, they'll never find me,' she thought, a mischievous giggle bubbling in her chest. 'I'll stay there until the sun starts to dip, and then I'll jump out and scare them all. Even Toby.'
She crouched low, her small boots crunching softly on the carpet of decayed leaves. The forest was quiet here—the kind of quiet that feels like it's waiting for something.
Rustle.
Lily froze. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird.
'A wolf? No, Papa said wolves don't come this close during the day.'
She peeked through a gap in the ferns. A white rabbit hopped out, its pink nose twitching with frantic energy. Lily let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.
"Oh, you silly thing," she whispered. "You scared me."
The rabbit paused, looked at her with wide, panicked eyes, and then bolted. It didn't just hop; it scrambled, its legs kicking up dirt as if the ground itself had turned into fire.
Lily frowned. "Hey! Wait up!"
She followed, her curiosity outweighing her common sense. She chased the white flash through a thicket of brambles and into a small, circular clearing she'd never seen before. The rabbit was gone, but the air in the clearing felt... wrong. It was thick. Static-heavy. Like the feeling in the back of your throat right before a summer thunderstorm breaks.
Then, the world tore.
There was no sound, only a visual scream. A jagged line of violet and white light ripped through the air in front of her. It looked like someone had taken a knife to the sky and peeled back the blue to reveal the absolute, terrifying nothingness underneath.
Lily fell backward, her hands over her eyes. A heatless, blinding flash erupted, accompanied by a smell she didn't recognize—ozone, burnt sugar, and iron.
THUD.
The sound was heavy. Wet.
When the light faded and the spots cleared from her vision, the tear was gone. The clearing was silent again. But in the center of the grass lay a heap of... something.
Lily crawled forward, her breath hitching. "Rabbit?"
It wasn't a rabbit.
It was a boy. Or at least, it used to be.
He was sprawled in the dirt, twisted like a doll that had been stepped on by a giant. His clothes were charred rags, fused to skin that looked like it had been through a wood chipper. One arm was pinned underneath him at an angle that made Lily feel sick. His face... she couldn't even see his face. It was masked in a thick, drying layer of crimson.
'Is he... is he a monster?'
She got closer, her small hand trembling as she reached out. She saw a single eye—not closed, but missing. Just a dark, weeping hollow. The other eye was shut tight, the lashes matted with gore.
The boy's chest gave a ragged, wet hitch. A bubble of blood popped on his lips.
Lily didn't scream. She didn't have the air for it. She scrambled up, her legs turning to jelly, and sprinted. She didn't care about the brambles tearing at her dress or the branches slapping her face.
'Help. I have to find Papa. The boy is broken. He's all broken.'
She burst out of the treeline, her face white as a sheet. She ran past Toby and the others, who shouted questions she didn't hear. She flew down the main dirt path of the village until she saw the familiar iron-grey hair and broad shoulders of her father, Silas, who was leaning against a fence post chatting with the blacksmith.
"PAPA!"
Silas turned, his smile vanishing as he saw his daughter's state. He caught her mid-stride as she threw herself into his waist.
"Lily? What is it? Did you fall?"
"The forest!" she sobbed, pointing a shaking finger toward the green wall. "The sky broke! A boy fell out! He's... he's red, Papa. He's all red and broken!"
Silas didn't waste time asking for logic. He knew Lily didn't make up stories like this. He looked at the blacksmith, who gripped a heavy hammer, and then at a couple of other men nearby. "Gather the healer. Lily, show me. Stay behind me, but show me."