Frost slicked the moss underfoot as the sun rose, weak and colorless. Thin, wispy mists shrouded the forest. Boaz walked at the front, his longsword bouncing slightly against his back with each of his long strides. He didn’t seem to mind. Thorne strode beside him, every muscle alert, his long, tufty ears on a swivel.

Behind him shuffled Duln, her cloak drawn close, a rough-hewn spear serving more as cane than weapon. Even the weak morning light already burned her gray skin; she leaned on the shaft for each step. When she spoke, her voice was thin and reedy, the words shaped awkwardly by her Terran accent.

“This road… older than trees,” she murmured. “Once led to song caves. Now, only smoke.”

Theo glanced around, not quite understanding her meaning. “And here I was hoping for a scenic detour.”

Lyra’s reply was dry. “You got your wish. Scenic, but add nightmares and burning wolves.” No one laughed.

The path narrowed, the trees thinning as they approached a circle of black soil. At its center rose a single enormous tree trunk. It was dead, splintered, with bark peeling and split into strips of charcoal. Giant roots clawed outward, as if frozen mid-spasm. Half-swallowed into the trunk’s side was a Terran body, mummified and still, as though the tree had claimed it.

Kiera whispered, “Merciful heavens…”

The face in the bark was peaceful. Fungal veins traced from its chest into the wood, like a heart that stopped beating. At the tree’s base, half buried in ash and dark soil, lay a shard of iron shaped crudely like a Triune Sigil leaf. The metal glinted dully and warped the light around it, pulling warmth from the air.

Duln wavered but forced herself forward. “False leaf,” she said. “Terran made… long ago. Fire wrong way. Earth not forgive.”

Aldryn leaned on his staff, eyes narrowing. “Imitation lacks imagination and truth,” he said. “Even the roots remember deceit.”

Boaz crouched beside the shard. The Sigil beneath his shirt pulsed once, faint and uneasy. “It feels alive, and angry.”

“Alive, no,” Aldryn replied. “Hungry, perhaps.”

The true Sigil at Boaz’s chest warmed suddenly, a pulse so sharp he quickly drew breath. The air pressure increased; they could feel it in their ears, as if the forest itself was remembering.

Beneath the tree, the false shard quivered. A faint hiss rose from the soil, followed by a sound of splintering wood. The earth cracked open, veins of pale dust racing outward from Boaz’s feet toward the roots. Mushrooms ruptured along the fractures, spilling black spores into the air.

From that spreading line of rot, shapes began to form: torsos knitted from roots, ribs of bark, faces sealed beneath veils of fungus. They clawed upward in silence, half-man and half-ash, drawn to the living Sigil as iron to a lodestone.

“Form up! Duln to the middle!” Boaz called.

Jaxson darted forward, blades ready. “Thought we left these things behind in the marsh.”

“Not same, Ash Wights,” Duln rasped, raising her spear though her arms shook. “These born from tree’s hate.”

The first creature lunged. Jaxson met it head-on, his twin blades biting deep but drawing no blood. Another came from the flank, forcing Lyra and Mika to intercept. Mika leapt, teeth flashing; Lyra’s illusion split her into two, confusing the foe long enough for Theo’s rune-bolt to thud into its side. Steam hissed from the wound; it staggered but kept coming. Lyra drew her sword, ready to defend Duln.

Aldryn struck his staff against the ground. “Stay tight!” Roots surged up around him, lashing the attackers, but the things tore free, leaving splinters in their wake.

Kiera swung her mace into a wight, knocking it down and to the side, away from Duln, safe for the moment. Jaxson parried blow after blow.

“Theo, your ward,” yelled Boaz.

“On it!” He slammed a metal disk into the soil; lines of blue heat spread outward, releasing a burst of vapor that drove several monsters back. The respite lasted heartbeats.

One of the creatures veered toward Boaz. It moved wrong: jerky, uncertain, like a puppet missing a few strings. He stepped forward, heart hammering, sword angled low. Every instinct screamed to burn, to unleash the Sigil, but Duln’s hoarse whisper reached him across the noise: “Fire must breathe. Not choke.”

Boaz drew a slow breath. The creature swung, a wild, heavy strike. He didn’t meet it with force. He let the motion pass through him. For an instant the world folded, his body turning thin as smoke, and the blow whistled harmlessly through empty air, and Vetharion caused the blow to hit the creature. Light flashed, silent and perfect. The attacker’s chest split with its own strike’s reflection. The wound it meant for Boaz blossomed upon itself, consuming it in bright ember light before collapsing to dust.

“By the depths,” Theo whispered.

More came. Boaz moved again, awkward but calm, finding a rhythm not of battle but of balance: parry, yield, mirror. Vetharion sang once more, then twice, each time turning the enemy’s violence inward. Soon the clearing blazed with soft red light, not flame but truth made visible. Around him, the fellowship fought harder, rallying. Aldryn’s roots constricted, Jaxson cut through the staggered flank, Lyra’s illusions folded inward to blind their foes, even as she cut with her sword, and Kiera’s voice kept their courage steady, while her mace slammed them to the ground. When at last the final creature fell, the forest exhaled a long, low sigh. Silence. Steam drifted from Theo’s ward; even Mika and Thorne stood still, hackles high but quiet.

Duln’s spear point lowered. She swayed and caught herself. “Fire that listen,” she said, breath trembling. “Not rule. Good fire.”

Kiera hurried to her side, pressing a waterskin to her lips. “Here. Easy. You’re safe now.”

Theo broke the hush first. “Boaz… that was…”

Aldryn finished softly, “Vetharion. The mirror wound.”

Boaz stood still, astonished. “I didn’t think it would answer.”

“Because you did not demand it,” Aldryn said. “You asked.”

Jaxson gave a low whistle. “Remind me not to stand opposite you next time.”

Lyra managed a tired grin. “He’s finally learned how not to burn down the forest.”

Theo grinned back. “Give him time.”

Boaz looked at the mummified figure, sealed in the bark, of the false bearer whose fire had devoured itself. The Sigil on his chest pulsed once more, steady now. “I can’t waste the lesson,” he said quietly. “We’ll find the true leaf… and we’ll get it right.”

A thin wind stirred the ash, scattering it upward like sparks caught on a current of air. Far away, thunder murmured beneath the mountains, whether storm or answer, none could tell.

For a heartbeat the world held its breath. Ash drifted lazily between the trees, turning the clearing into a dim snowfall. Boaz’s last words still hung in the air. We’ll find the true leaf… and we’ll get it right.

Then Thorne’s ears twitched. His head lifted toward the eastern rise. A single ridge cut the horizon, its slope cloaked in gray moss. At its crest stood a figure, motionless, indistinct, yet unmistakably watching. The light behind it wavered, and for an instant the moss along its shoulders glowed with a faint, embered pulse.

“Tell me someone else sees that,” Theo murmured.

“I see it,” Jaxson said, already reaching for an arrow. “And I don’t like it.”

“Hold,” Aldryn ordered. His staff lifted a fraction. “No sudden noise. We don’t know what it is, or whether it poses a threat.”

The figure did not move. Even the mist seemed unwilling to touch it. What little sunlight reached the ridge warped faintly around its outline, as if refusing to cross whatever boundary surrounded it.

Duln made a hoarse sound that might have been a word or a breath. Her knees buckled. Boaz turned at once, catching her under the arms. “Easy.”

“Sun bites deeper,” she rasped. “Light… heavier each day.”

Kiera knelt beside them, pressing cool hands to Duln’s brow. “You’ve pushed too far. Rest.”

Duln shook her head weakly. “No rest here. Eyes on us. Old fire see… new bearer.”

“Then you know what that is?” Lyra asked, glancing toward the ridge.

Duln’s pupils, clouded by age and exhaustion, shifted toward the horizon. “Shade of Terran forge-lord,” she said haltingly. “Once shaped false leaf. When tree took him, his soul not rest. Burn still… in moss and ash.”

Theo swallowed. “So… it’s watching because we lit the right fire this time?” No one answered.

The figure shifted at last, just slightly, as if turning its head. The moss that draped it caught the sun and shimmered green-gold, then darkened to ember red. The faint heat reached them across the clearing, dry as forge breath.

Jaxson raised his bow. “Say the word. I’ve got it.”

Boaz lifted a hand. “No. If it wanted to strike, it would have.”

“Maybe it’s waiting for night,” Jaxson muttered.

“I don’t think so. But, we’ll be ready,” Boaz said. He turned to Aldryn. “Can you sense it?”

The old mage’s eyes closed. The faint runes along his staff kindled, dim as coals. “It stands at the edge between memory and matter. It’s not alive, not quite dead. Whatever drives it… hungers for what you carry.” He opened his eyes again. “But it fears it, too.”

“Fear of truth,” Duln whispered, forcing the words. “False fire always fear true.” She sagged, and Boaz steadied her until Kiera and Theo came to help.

“Let’s move,” Aldryn said quietly. “The longer we linger, the more it learns. Eastward lies the old road. Stone won’t listen as quickly as soil.”

They gathered their things in silence. Lyra lingered last, her gaze fixed on the ridge. “It’s still there,” she said under her breath. “Watching like it knows something we don’t.”

“Maybe it does,” Theo replied. “But at least we’ve given it something to worry about.”

When the fellowship finally stepped from the clearing, the forest seemed to exhale again, relieved yet wary. The blackened tree and its false shard sank behind them into shadow. For a time, only the crunch of boots broke the hush.

Half a league away, Boaz risked one last glance back. The ridge was empty now, no figure, no glow, only the wind moving through ashen leaves. Yet the Sigil pulsed once, slow and deliberate, as if echoing another heartbeat somewhere far off.

By mid-afternoon they had left the clearing and the watcher behind, though its silence still followed them. The forest thinned to silver-leafed groves and scattered pools where the water shone black as glass. When they finally stopped, the light had turned copper and the air smelled of damp stone and charcoal. They chose a hollow beside a stream that murmured faintly through cracked rock. Theo unpacked his tools without speaking; Jaxson collected dry branches that weren’t yet tainted gray. Lyra sat with her back to a tree, head tilted against the bark as Mika prowled in slow restless circles.

Kiera knelt beside Duln, who lay wrapped in her travel cloak, breath shallow. The old Terran’s skin looked translucent in the dim light.

“Pulse is steady,” Kiera murmured, mostly to herself. “But her body’s fighting the sun. It’s like she’s fading from both ends.”

Boaz crouched nearby. “Can you help her?”

“I can ease her,” Kiera said, brushing a strand of silver hair from Duln’s forehead. “But this isn’t a wound. It’s the years and the curse both.”

Duln’s eyes fluttered open. “No fixing old roots,” she whispered, her voice rough with the gravel of her homeland. “Only tending. You sing good, healer. Warm voice.”

Kiera smiled faintly. “Rest, then.”

Duln’s gaze drifted to Boaz. “You use fire true today.”

He shifted, uneasy. “I’m not sure what I used. It just… worked.”

She made a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a cough. “True fire always work. Not need knowing. Need heart still.”

Boaz looked down at the ground, unsure how to answer. When dusk settled, Theo coaxed the fire to life with a rune that glowed blue before settling into natural flame. The smell of cooking lentils filled the air. For a time, no one spoke.

Finally, Theo broke the quiet. “So,” he said, turning his spoon in the pot, “that reflection thing, is it always like that? Because if it is, we should probably start teaching it to everyone.”

Jaxson snorted. “Right. Maybe I’ll just let enemies stab me and see what happens.”

“It’s not a trick,” Boaz said softly.

Aldryn nodded. “No. It’s judgment. Vetharion is not a blade that kills, it merely returns the truth of an act. That’s why it answered you today. And it only works with the Sigil.”

Lyra poked at the fire with a stick. “So what happens if he uses it in anger?”

The old mage’s gaze flicked to Boaz. “Then it will judge him the same way.”

Theo made a low whistle. “Fair. Terrifying, but fair.”

Boaz said nothing. The truth of it sat heavy, but clear. Later, as stars kindled through the canopy, the fellowship began to settle. Kiera hummed quietly while checking her slingstones; Jaxson sharpened his blades by firelight; Aldryn traced runes into the dirt, slow and meditative. Lyra watched him, curiosity softening her usual sharpness.

“Those markings,” she asked. “What are they?”

“Remembrance sigils,” Aldryn said. “Old words to still the ground. After false fire, the soil needs rest.”

“Rest,” she repeated. “I like that.”

Theo held a blackened sliver of iron in his tongs, one of the fragments he’d taken from the clearing. “I kept this,” he said. “Don’t panic, it’s inert. But the pattern’s interesting. The runes spiral instead of radiate. It’s like someone was trying to copy power without understanding flow.”

Aldryn leaned forward to examine it, eyes narrowing. “Yes. They mimicked the shape, not the harmony. Like a child copying a song’s notes but missing its rhythm.”

Lyra looked at Boaz. “So when you used the real Sigil, the forest reacted. When they forged the false one, it rebelled. Maybe the land itself can tell the difference.”

Boaz thought of the way the Ash Wights had moved, uncertain, incomplete, and nodded slowly. “Maybe truth isn’t just what we say. It’s what answers.”

Kiera smiled at that, though her eyes stayed sad. “Then I’d say the forest heard you today.”

When the others finally drifted to their blankets, Boaz lingered by the dying fire, taking first watch. Thorne lay stretched beside him, chin on paws, eyes glowing faintly in the coals’ reflection. The forest was quiet and not hostile anymore, just vast. He looked across the camp. Duln slept, her spear laid beside her hand. For the first time, she looked almost peaceful.

Aldryn stepped into the edge of the firelight, staff in hand. “You handled the Sigil well today.”

Boaz shook his head. “I didn’t handle it. I just stopped fighting it.”

“That is handling it.”

He studied the coals for a long moment. “I didn’t strike to kill. I only… didn’t want to add to the ruin.”

“I think that’s why it obeyed,” Aldryn said. “Vetharion should answer justice, not wrath. Remember that in Durn-Kelmar. The Terran were makers once, before they became miners. They understand the danger of shaping truth with unsteady hearts.”

Boaz looked up. “Duln said this road leads to their song caves.”

Aldryn smiled faintly. “You’ll hear their echo soon enough.” He left Boaz to the quiet.

Long after the others slept, Boaz sat alone, watching the last ember dim. He drew the Sigil from beneath his tunic and turned it in his hand. The faint red glow pulsed with his heartbeat, steady now, calm.

“You saw it too, didn’t you?” he murmured to Thorne. The lynx’s ears twitched. “That thing on the ridge.” Thorne made a soft growl deep in his chest, not warning, but agreement. Boaz nodded. “Then it wasn’t just the others imagining.”

He slipped the Sigil back beneath his shirt, woke Jaxson for his watch, and lay down at last, the scent of smoke clinging to the air. As he closed his eyes, the fire gave one final pop, scattering a few sparks into the dark. They rose and vanished, tiny stars lost among the branches. Sleep took him then, slow and deep, as the forest’s long breath settled around them all.

Boaz dreamed of fire.

Not the wild kind that devoured wood and air, but a steady, pulsing flame that rose from a forge he half-remembered. The hammer lay where his father had left it, the anvil shining red. Heat breathed like a heartbeat.

He was a boy again, though his hands were his own now, older, scarred. Sparks drifted upward and became stars. Every strike of the hammer rang clear, shaping metal that glowed not orange but crimson, the color of the Sigil’s light.

Across from him stood another figure at a twin forge, mirroring his motions. At first he thought it was his father, but the rhythm was wrong. Each strike came a fraction too soon, then too late, echo without source. The twin fire burned brighter, harsher. Its sparks fell to ash before they reached the air.

Boaz stopped. The other did not. Steel warped under its blows, edges twisting inward, hungry for shape. “Why do you rush?” Boaz called across the glow.

The figure looked up, its face lost behind glare. “To make it faster. To make it mine.”

Boaz felt the Sigil stir at his chest even here, within the dream. “Fire doesn’t belong,” he said. “It lends itself.”

The other’s hammer came down one final time, shattering its own anvil. The forge flared white, swallowing everything.

When the light faded, Boaz stood before the dead tree again, the same charred trunk, but now split open to reveal a molten core. From its heart rose two shapes: one the true Sigil, glowing with measured heat; the other the warped shard, pulsing unevenly, still reaching for life.

Between them hung a single drop of molten iron. It hovered, trembling, waiting. He reached out. The drop divided in two, half drifting toward the real leaf, half toward the false. But the halves did not fight. They balanced, as if each recognized its opposite. The glow dimmed to a steady amber.

Then a voice, not his father’s, not Aldryn’s, spoke through the heat:

“Creation remembers its maker’s breath.
Shape with haste, and the fire shapes you.
Shape with care, and the fire learns to sing.”

The air cooled. The two Sigils, true and false, merged into one brief flash of red light that folded back into his chest.

He woke before dawn.

The fire had burned to embers, the sky above gray with the promise of morning. Thorne lay beside him, ears twitching. Boaz sat up slowly, rubbing his hands over his face. The dream clung to him like soot and sleepiness both. He could still feel the rhythm of the hammer, still hear that last whispered line.

Kiera stirred nearby. “You’re awake early,” she murmured, voice husky with sleep.

“Couldn’t stay asleep,” he said. “Dreams again.”

She propped herself on one elbow. “The Sigil?”

Boaz nodded. “This time it showed me a forge… two fires. One true, one false. They both made the same thing, but only one sang.”

Kiera smiled faintly. “That sounds like something Aldryn will want to pick apart.”

“Probably,” Boaz said, half a grin touching his mouth. “But it felt… simple, somehow. Creation itself was listening.” He looked toward the east, where the first light touched the moss-gray trees. Smoke from their campfire drifted upward, caught in that light and turning gold.

“Maybe that’s what it means,” he said quietly. “That the world listens, too. To how we shape it.”

Kiera nodded, eyes soft. “Then we’d better speak kindly.”

As the others began to stir, the forest around them came alive with muted sounds of water over stone, wind through hollow bark, distant calls of unseen birds. The silver leaves above caught the sun’s first glint and shimmered faintly, as if acknowledging something newly balanced.

Boaz stood, shoulders straightening. “Let’s see what’s left of the old Terran road,” he said. No one argued.

They doused the embers, packed their gear, and moved east through a clearing laced with morning mist. Duln leaned heavily on her spear, each step labored but steady. Aldryn walked beside her, listening as she murmured half-remembered Terran words, something between prayer and map. Behind them, the forest exhaled once more, smoke and dew mingling in peace.

The morning continued to break clear and cold here in the forest. Mist pooled low along the hollows, glowing amber where the sun reached through. The forest smelled different now, less of soot, more of wet stone and sap returning. Birds, cautious at first, had begun to sing again.

Boaz walked beside Aldryn, the Sigil’s warmth a faint thrum beneath his tunic. He told the old mage of the dream while they followed the stream’s bend eastward, the others scattered loosely behind.

“Two forges,” Aldryn repeated, tapping his staff against the stones. “One singing, one screaming. Hm.” He smiled without looking at Boaz. “The fire keeps teaching you faster than I ever would.”

“I don’t think it was teaching,” Boaz said. “It was… reminding. Like it already knew what I’d forgotten.”

Lyra, walking just ahead, turned at that. “So the Sigil dreams now? Lovely. Maybe it can tell us where the next cursed forest starts.”

Theo grinned. “If it does, maybe it’ll send directions in advance this time so we don’t meet unwelcome guests.”

Aldryn chuckled. “Mock all you like, but dreams often carry clearer tongues than waking reason. What did the fire say, exactly?”

Boaz recited softly, “‘Creation remembers its maker’s breath. Shape with haste, and the fire shapes you. Shape with care, and the fire learns to sing.’”

Theo whistled low. “That’s better philosophy than anything we had at Beltin.”

Lyra raised a brow. “So, intent matters more than speed. The forest tried to warn us the same way, didn’t it? The false Sigil was all force, no harmony.”

Kiera smiled over her shoulder. “Maybe everything that lives knows when something’s made in anger.”

Duln trudged a few paces ahead, leaning hard on her spear. “Terran know once,” she said, her breath shallow but steady. “Song make stone soft, shape true. Then greed come. Want faster. Want shine, not song.” She paused to draw breath. “We pay long for that.”

Aldryn nodded gravely. “Aye. The curse really began not with breaking the Sigil, but with forgetting why it was made.” They walked in silence for a time, with their boots the only sound. Ahead, the trees began to space wider apart; thin strips of gray stone peeked through the moss: flat, deliberate, the remnants of a road.

Theo crouched to scrape away soil from one slab. “Found it,” he said. “Old masonry. Still holding.”

Duln’s eyes brightened faintly. “Road to Durn-Kelmar,” she murmured. “Home… before dark.”

Boaz looked down the faint line of stone winding east through the thinning trees. The company fell into a slow rhythm along the ancient way. The air carried the distant hum of water running beneath the stones.

Lyra walked beside Kiera now. “You think what Boaz did, Vetharion, counts as creation or reflection?”

Kiera considered. “Both. Reflection of justice, creation of peace. Maybe that’s what true power is, making something right without destroying it.”

Lyra smiled wryly. “Careful, healer. You’ll put philosophers out of work.”

Ahead of them, Theo ran a gloved hand along a carved edge in the paving. “Look here, etched runes, faint but there.” He brushed away dust to reveal curling lines that shimmered briefly before fading. “It’s as if the stone woke up for a second.”

Aldryn bent to see. “Old Terran craft. The road used to carry resonance: song through stone. Even after all these years, it remembers.”

Boaz watched as the pattern dimmed. “Maybe it’s waiting for someone to finish the song.”

Duln gave a raspy chuckle. “Then you better sing strong, Boaz of fire. Road long, and stone stubborn.”

He grinned despite himself. “No one wants to hear me sing.”

By midday the mist had burned away. Sunlight broke cleanly through the silver canopy, scattering gold across the paving. The company paused for water at a fallen milestone, its inscription worn but still legible in part. Kiera traced the old Terran letters with a fingertip.

“What does it say?” she asked.

Duln squinted. “Kelmar-dur. Means ‘Heart of Stone.’”

Theo tilted his head. “Sounds inviting.”

Aldryn smiled faintly. “Not all hearts are soft, young one. Some endure by being firm.”

Boaz looked from them to the horizon, where the road vanished into haze. “If the first leaf tested compassion, what will this one test?”

“Strength of will,” Aldryn agreed. “Not muscle. The Terran once believed true craft demanded patience above all things. Let that guide you when we reach their gates.”

Lyra muttered, “Assuming they still have gates.”

“And assuming we still have patience,” Theo added.

Their laughter, thin but genuine, rolled down the ancient stones and echoed softly through the trees. Even Duln smiled, faint but visible.

As the day waned, the forest around them changed again. The silver leaves gave way to darker green, and veins of red ore shimmered along the rocks. The air grew warmer, touched with the scent of iron and deep earth.

Aldryn slowed, eyes narrowing. “Do you feel that?”

Boaz nodded. “The ground hums.”

“Old forge fires,” Duln whispered. “Still sleeping under stone.”

They all stood listening. Beneath their boots came a low, steady thrum, distant yet alive, as if the mountain itself breathed. Boaz felt the Sigil answer, pulsing once in rhythm with that sound. Not in warning, but recognition. He looked east, toward where the sun had begun to fall.

“Let’s keep moving,” he said quietly. “I think we’re closer than it feels right now.”

And as they followed the humming road deeper into the light, the shadows of the forest lengthened behind them, carrying the faint scent of burnt iron and the promise of stone halls waiting in the dark ahead.

As the afternoon waned, the forest thinned even more. The canopy lifted higher, the trunks farther apart, and through the gaps they caught flashes of open sky. It was clear, untroubled blue for the first time in many days. Wind stirred the leaves with a sound that was not whispering now but sighing, content to let them go.

Duln slowed. Her hand trembled on the spear, and she pointed ahead where the trees ended in a pale rise. “There,” she rasped. “Forest’s edge. Beyond… the Crests.”

They climbed the slope in silence. When they reached the top, the land opened before them. There they saw wide hills rolling eastward until they broke against a jagged wall of mountains. The peaks caught the late light, red-gold and streaked with veins of iron that gleamed like fire caught in stone. Below those mountains yawned a dark cleft.

Boaz stood staring. “That’s where Durn-Kelmar lies?”

Duln nodded weakly. “Under the stone. Deep. Song sleeps there still.”

The company spread out along the ridge, drinking in the view. Behind them, the Wolhaven Forlaith stretched in gray and silver folds: vast, still, but no longer watching. Even the ash-scarred trees seemed softer at this distance, their wounds less accusing.

Lyra exhaled. “Finally, something that isn’t trying to eat us.”

Theo smiled faintly. “Give it time.”

Aldryn leaned on his staff, eyes distant. “The forest tested our restraint. The mountains will test our resolve.”

Kiera brushed a hand along the moss at her feet, which was now green, not gray as in the forest. Boaz glanced once more toward the horizon where the sun dipped behind the Crests. The Sigil’s warmth pulsed steady against his chest, neither urging nor warning, only ready.

He turned to the others. “Come on,” he said quietly. “Let’s leave the forest before it changes its mind.” They descended from the ridge, shadows long before them, until the silver trees gave way to open ground and the scent of cool mountain stone. By the time night gathered, the first stars had risen over the Crests: distant, sharp, and waiting.

And behind them, the Wolhaven Forlaith whispered its last farewell, a long rustle fading into peace.

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