The forest swallowed them as they walked.

  Aros, Legs, Digiera and Seren Dal moved in silence for hours, the trees growing denser and darker with every step. Their boots sank into the layers of needles, wet earth and crushed roots, leaving behind a thin trail that the night quickly tried to erase. Above their heads, branches intertwined so tightly that they resembled the ribs of some prehistoric animal, black silhouettes holding up the faint remains of daylight. The trunks rose like pillars, rough and cold against the air, exhaling a damp scent of rot that clung to their clothes with every breath.

  What little light filtered through the canopy did so in trembling fragments, unable to commit to illuminating anything for more than a heartbeat. Patches of shadow stretched across the path, warping and shifting as though alive. Even the animals avoided that part of the forest. No birds, no insects, no rustling from the underbrush. Only the sound of their own breath, uneven and overly loud in the suffocating quiet.

  The wind brushed past them once, a thin ripple of air that stirred the leaves in a brief shiver. Then it vanished, leaving behind a silence so heavy it felt like a warning.

  By the time the first hints of night bled through the thick ceiling of branches, the group was exhausted. Their legs had turned heavy, their footsteps uncertain. Aros felt a pulse of cold pain tighten beneath his ribs with each movement, a steady reminder of what he had already lost and what he was still trying to protect. Digiera’s jaw was set like stone, her posture rigid, and she walked with the controlled fury of someone refusing to let her own body betray her. Legs stumbled once, catching himself against Seren’s arm. Neither spoke. Seren, for his part, carried the weight of the silence as though it were something he had long since accepted.

  With daylight gone and no promise of safety ahead, they finally stopped.

  They found a hollow between two leaning trees, half sheltered from the wind by a stone outcrop. Digiera moved first, gathering dead branches scattered in the shadows and snapping them with brief, angry motions. Legs crouched beside the small pit he scraped into the dirt, his fingers stiff from cold and tension. Seren knelt down with familiar patience, striking the flint in slow, deliberate rhythms. Sparks emerged, hesitated in the air, then died. On the third try, the dry bark caught reluctantly, a thin flame crawling its way upward before finally settling into a frail glow.

  The fire remained small. Its light pushed the shadows back, but only barely, creating a fragile circle where they could pretend the outside world remained distant for just a moment longer.

  Aros lowered Gemma near the warmth. He wrapped her carefully in his cloak, trying not to let his hands tremble. Her skin was cold, almost unresponsive. Her breathing barely stirred her chest. Dirt clung to her cheeks, streaked in crooked lines. Dried blood darkened the strands of hair framing her face. Her right leg rested at an angle that made the others avert their eyes even though they had seen worse.

  When the fire crackled into a steady rhythm, they settled around her, each taking one edge of the small circle of light, as if their presence alone could guard her from whatever had followed.

  For a long while, no one spoke.

  The silence seemed older than the forest.

  Eventually, Legs exhaled, a shiver running visibly down his arms. “Whoever did that… whoever carved those men like that… it wasn’t human.”

  Digiera jabbed at the fire with a stick, sending small sparks upward. “There are humans capable of worse. Don’t let them off so easily.”

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  Legs shook his head, eyes unfocused. “It wasn’t rage. And it wasn’t some frantic fight. It looked… intentional. Like the bodies had been arranged. Shaped.”

  Seren watched the flames as if they could answer the questions pressing at his thoughts. “It wasn’t war,” he said. “It was purpose.”

  Aros didn’t look up. The clearing still lingered behind his eyes: shattered wagons, bodies crushed under impossible force, limbs twisted as though rearranged by a hand that understood anatomy too well. Lexordo nailed to the broken cart like a ritual display. The sword still embedded in bone. The absence of screams where echoes should have lived.

  The wound in his abdomen throbbed again. This time, the coldness spreading from it felt almost deliberate.

  Gemma coughed.

  All four turned instantly.

  Her fingers twitched weakly beneath the cloak, curling and uncurling as though pulling at something invisible. Her eyelids fluttered, catching the firelight in brief flashes. When her eyes finally opened, they drifted from shadow to shadow, failing to focus until they landed on Aros.

  He knelt beside her, brushing dirt from her forehead, ignoring the pain that jolted through his side.

  “You’re safe,” he whispered. “You’re with us.”

  She blinked slowly, her gaze swimming with confusion and something darker. When recognition settled in her expression, it came with fear.

  “No… no, we have to go,” she whispered. “We can’t stop. We have to keep moving.”

  She tried to push herself upright, but the attempt collapsed into a gasp of pain. Her breath fractured into quick, shallow bursts.

  “Rest,” Aros murmured, placing a steady hand on her shoulder. “We’ll keep watch.”

  She looked at him with a terror that felt older than anything she had endured with the Knights of Light.

  “You can’t,” she said. “No one can protect themselves. Not from him.”

  A breeze moved across the hollow, colder than before, brushing the fire in a trembling wave.

  Digiera leaned in. “Him. Who?”

  Gemma swallowed hard. It took her a moment to form the word.

  “Anxio.”

  The name hovered in the air like something that didn’t belong in a human mouth. It clung to the firelight, to their skin, to the darkness pressing in around them.

  Seren tensed. Legs stared toward the thick wall of trees as though expecting eyes to bloom within the branches.

  Aros kept his voice soft. “Gemma… who is Anxio?”

  Her gaze slid upward, unfocused, almost reverent and terrified at once.

  “He’s my god,” she said. “The god of everyone.”

  The fire dimmed, as if the flames themselves recoiled.

  Aros felt his breath tighten. Digiera’s fingers brushed the hilt of her blade. Seren lowered his head a fraction. Legs paled, unable to look anywhere but the ground.

  Aros took Gemma’s cold hand, holding it firmly.

  “You were gone for a month and a half,” he said. “We feared the worst. Tell me everything. Every detail. No matter how small.”

  Gemma’s lips trembled. Tears rose, carving pale tracks through the dirt on her face.

  “You won’t believe me,” she whispered.

  “Try,” Aros answered.

  The fire snapped loudly, as if struck by an unseen hand.

  She closed her eyes, inhaling shakily, as though preparing herself for pain.

  “Anxio found me.”

  Her entire body shuddered.

  “And he’s coming.”

  The flames bent sideways, pushed by a force none of them felt on their skin.

  No one breathed.

  Digiera’s voice broke the silence, low and raw. “What does that mean?”

  Gemma didn’t look at her. Her eyes were fixed on the fire, empty and too wide, as though she had stared at something that had looked back.

  Aros squeezed her hand, grounding himself in the moment.

  “Gemma,” he whispered. “Start at the beginning.”

  She inhaled slowly, the sound trembling as if dragged from the depths of her chest.

  “The beginning,” she murmured.

  Her eyes rolled for an instant before she forced them open again.

  “And the end are already here.”