The forest was wrong.
Kael could feel it in the marrow of his bones, in the slow churn of the earth beneath his boots. What was once a place of quiet whispers and silver moonlight now pulsed with something... diseased. The trees leaned inward as though listening, their bark slick with black veins that pulsed like living blood.
The rift above had closed, but its residue remained — a stain on the sky, an echo in his chest. Every shadow seemed to breathe, and every breath he took came with a taste of iron and ash.
He hadn't slept in three days. Sleep meant dreams, and dreams meant her.
Lyria.
He could still smell her in the air sometimes — the faint trace of starlight and rain. He could almost hear her voice, the soft echo of his name the way she'd said it before the light swallowed her. It haunted him more than the gods' silence ever could.
