My first coherent thought was that I was dead. It didn't surprise me all that much. Actually, my main reaction was a certain irritation. After all that running, I'd ended up in the afterlife without even a piece of bread in my stomach. Typical.
Then I opened my eyes. The ceiling was a tangle of dark beams and ancient cobwebs, not the clouds I'd imagined. The air smelled of dried herbs, smoke, and damp earth—a strange but not unpleasant scent. I was lying on a bedding of animal hides, more comfortable than any bed I'd ever had at the orphanage. Definitely not hell. Perhaps some kind of rustic purgatory.
"Margot?" My voice was a hoarse croak.
I tried to sit up. Mistake. My muscles protested in unison, as if I'd fought an entire regiment and lost. My head was spinning like a crazed top. The price for playing garden wizard, apparently, was a colossal hangover without even the fun of having drunk anything.
I dragged myself toward the open door. I was in a "cabin"—that wasn't quite the right word. The one I'd woken up in was more like the lair of some ancient forest creature. The dwelling was half-carved into a hillside, so much so that the back wall was living rock, damp and covered with luminous moss. Enormous gnarled roots entered through the ceiling and walls, but instead of being a sign of neglect, they'd been integrated into the furnishings: one thicker root had been smoothed down to become a bench, from another hung bunches of dried herbs and strange wooden amulets. The floor was made of irregular wooden planks that at first glance seemed unstable and rotten, but when I put my weight on them, I felt them solid and strangely warm beneath my feet. It was a single large room where everything—the bedding, a small stone hearth, a table carved from a single enormous section of trunk—seemed to have grown there, in perfect and silent communion with the forest.
I looked outside and saw her. She was standing with her back to me, looking at the woods. Alive. The bandages wrapped around one shoulder and part of her arm were the only proof of the nightmare we'd been through. The relief was so intense it took my breath away.
Beside her was an old woman. Small, hunched, wrapped in a shawl of rough wool. She was applying a compress of dark leaves to Margot's shoulder with gnarled but surprisingly delicate fingers.
"Finally awake, sleepyhead," Margot said without turning around. "I was starting to think I'd have to drag your corpse all the way to Strasbourg."
"Of course not!" I replied, trying to smile even though I felt like a wreck. "And besides, who would explain to Elara that I managed to get myself killed during my first mission as a Guardian?" I leaned against the doorframe. "How—"
"You're a stupid idiot!" She spun around sharply, and in her eyes was a mix of anger and relief so profound it made me feel even guiltier. "You could have died! Using that thing in that way..." She started to say something else, but stopped. She got up and took a step toward me, then another, and hugged me. It was an awkward gesture, stiff, almost painful, but it was the closest thing to an "I missed you" I'd ever get from her.
The old woman watched us with an unreadable expression. Her eyes, a deep oak brown, calm and ancient, seemed to see much more than two dirty, frightened kids.
"Let him breathe, girl," she said, her voice calm and deep as earth. "The forest asked much of him, last night."
Margot pulled away. "She found us," she explained. "After you passed out. There was... another thing."
"Another thing?" I asked, my heart beginning to beat a little faster. "I hope it was a welcoming committee with pastries."
"A boar!" Margot said flatly. "Big as a carriage. Black, with yellow eyes that seemed... intelligent. Full of malice. It was about to charge us."
I looked at the old woman. She was barely taller than Margot. "How did you stop that beast? And, more importantly, who are you?"
The old woman sketched a smile, a web of wrinkles moving across her face. "The forest doesn't like anger. Sometimes, you just need to ask it gently."
"Her name is Anje," Margot interjected, her voice still a bit weak but steady. "She told me her name while she was bandaging my shoulder. She says she's a healer."
"Anje?" I repeated the name, savoring it. It was a solid name, ancient as the trees around us. I looked at the old woman, who stared back at me with her calm, patient eyes, as if she'd been waiting for me forever. "Well, Anje... thank you. You saved our lives."
She simply nodded, a slow gesture full of silent dignity.
She approached me. I felt her gaze pierce right through me. "You, boy, have quite a racket inside you."
Instinctively, I brought a hand to my chest, over the pouch hiding the medallion.
Anje's gaze followed my gesture. She nodded slowly, unsurprised. "Ah. I see." She turned toward a small, nearly withered plant growing in a pot near the door. She placed a hand on it, and for a fraction of a second, I sensed something. A faint flow of energy, a silent encouragement, a whisper of life.
"The earth has its own breath!" Anje said, turning back to look at me. "Some of us are born with ears to hear it."
She was like me. A Bearer. But different; more ancient and more calm.
"So..." Margot said, bringing us back to the main problem. "The boar, the monstrous Crow... is it all connected? Do you know what's happening?"
Anje sighed, returning to tend to Margot's shoulder. "The forest is sick!" she explained, her voice a murmur. "Ever since blood touched the earth of the manor, the forest has had a fever. Its creatures have become shadows of themselves, full of rage and fear."
"Blood?" I asked.
"The massacre of Count de Gueule-du-Corbeau!" Anje said. "A good man, a protector of this valley. They tore him to pieces. Perhaps... perhaps his soul has not found peace."
There it was. I tried to pretend she hadn't said it, but she had. The spirit of a murdered nobleman wandering around as a monster. Fantastic. It sounded like the plot of one of the horror stories we told each other at the orphanage to keep from sleeping at night.
"So it's him? The Count's spirit?" Margot asked, fascinated and terrified by the idea. "Taking revenge on those who didn't help him?"
Anje shook her head slowly, her gaze lost in a distant memory. "Revenge? No, girl. The Count didn't have an ounce of vengeance in his heart." She stood, entered the cabin, approached the small hearth, stoking the embers with a stick. "That manor... it wasn't just a house. It was a refuge. The Count loved art, music, knowledge. His doors were always open to passing artists, penniless poets, anyone with a talent to share."
Her tale painted such a different picture from that of a vengeful ghost. A world of light, music, and beauty.
"It was an island of light in a world growing ever darker," Anje continued. "The village people climbed up there for the festivals, to hear the music, to see the wonders the Count collected. There was life on that hill. And everyone benefited from it."
"Then why did they kill him?" I asked, the question burning on my tongue.
Anje's gaze hardened. "Because fear is easier than admiration. And because some prefer to extinguish the lights of others rather than kindle their own." She said no more, but her words were charged with an ancient bitterness.
"And now?" Margot asked. "What's up there?"
"Silence," Anje replied, her tone growing darker. "After the massacre, the forest reclaimed the hill. It's as if it's protecting a place of mourning. The paths have closed. The trees have grown thicker, the brambles thornier. No one can reach the manor anymore."
She stared at us, her oak-brown eyes seeming to contain the wisdom of the forest itself. "The beasts have become aggressive, like the boar you encountered. They attack anyone who tries to get too close. It's as if the forest itself is standing guard, defending the shattered memory of that place."
"And the Crow Man?" I asked.
"He is the heart of that sorrow," Anje concluded. "He's the final guardian. I don't know if he's the Count's spirit or something more ancient awakened by the blood. But I know this: as long as he's there, no one enters, and no one leaves."
A heavy silence fell in the cabin, thick as forest fog. The image of a living forest actively protecting its wounded heart was more frightening than any monster.
"Then we have to go there," I said, breaking the silence. My own voice sounded brazen to me, almost disrespectful in the face of such tragedy.
Margot whirled toward me, her eyes flashing. "Have you lost your mind, Victor? Didn't you hear? The forest itself is against us! And there's a 'final guardian'! Sounds like an excellent plan to get ourselves killed, don't you think?"
"We have a promise to keep," I replied, my voice firmer. "And the answers are up there. With the kidnapped people."
"You won't even make it halfway," Anje interjected, her tone calm but definitive, silencing our argument. She turned toward us, and in her oak-brown eyes was a profound sadness, almost a mourning. "Laurent will stop you!"
She stared at us, and her words fell into the room, simple, terrible, and final.
"No one returns alive from that hill."