The afternoon of the blast left the air tasting of ozone and burnt sugar. The violet glow of her bracelet didn't fade this time; it stayed steady, a defiant sun in the suffocating dark of the Elder Wood. But the silence—the new, predatory silence—was worse than the Weaver's clicking laughter.
She didn't wait to see what the blast had summoned. She ran.
Her boots thudded against roots that felt less like wood and more like muscle, twitching under her weight. The path the Weaver had shown her was scorched, a blackened ribbon cutting through the bioluminescence. As she sprinted, the trees began to lean in, their branches knitting together overhead to choke out any remaining light.
"Not today," she hissed through gritted teeth, her lungs burning with the cold,damp air.
She rounded a massive, moss-covered monolith and skidded to a halt. The ground didn't just end; it fell away into a cavernous ravine. Below, a river of liquid silver flowed—not water, but something thick and synchronisation with her bracelet.
Thump-thump.Thump-thump.
The river was the heartbeat of the forest. And standing on the narrow stone stone bridge that arched over the silver flow was a figure she hadn't expected. It wasn't a monster or a shadow-weaver.
It was a girl, no older than herself, wearing the same tattered tunic she had seen in the reflection of the altar back at the door. The girl held a finger to her lips, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and recognition.
"You're late," the girl whispered, her voice barely audible over the roar of the silver river." The Heart is already begining to bleed."