The creature's hand was colder than Lira expected—like holding a piece of the night sky.
The moment their fingers touched, the forest shifted.
Not around her… through her.
Memories she didn't recognize flashed behind her eyes—running through these same trees, laughing, hiding, calling out names she couldn't quite hear. Her breath caught as she stumbled forward.
"What are you doing to me?" she gasped.
"Showing you what you chose to forget," the creature replied, pulling her gently along.
The roar came again—so close now that the ground quivered beneath each step.
Branches snapped in the distance.
Something massive was moving.
Lira forced herself to focus. "What is it?"
The creature didn't look back. "A Warden."
"A guardian doesn't sound like something that hunts people."
"It doesn't hunt people," the creature said quietly. "It hunts liars."
Lira's stomach dropped.
"I'm not—"
The creature stopped so suddenly she nearly collided with it. Slowly, it turned its glowing face toward her.
"Then why don't you remember who you are?"
Silence fell between them, thick and heavy....
Another crash—closer than ever..... Trees splintered as something enormous forced its way through the forest, unrelenting.
Lira's chest tightened. "I… I don't know."
The creature studied her, its starlight flickering like doubt.
"Then you'd better find the truth quickly," it said, stepping back. "Because it's here."
The forest exploded.
A towering shape burst through the trees—bark and bone fused into a monstrous form, its body crowned with jagged antlers that scraped the sky. Its eyes burned like molten gold, locking onto Lira with terrifying certainty.
The Warden.
It didn't hesitate.
It charged.
"Run!" the creature shouted.
Lira spun, sprinting blindly as the ground shook beneath her. Roots clawed at her feet, branches whipped at her face, but she didn't dare look back—
Until something slammed into her from the side.
She hit the ground hard, the air knocked from her lungs. The creature tumbled beside her, its glow flickering violently.
"You can't outrun it," it said urgently. "It already knows."
"Knows what?!" she cried.
The Warden's shadow fell over them.
Slowly, impossibly slowly, Lira turned.
The creature grabbed her wrist. "Don't lie," it whispered. "Not now."
The Warden lowered its massive head, its burning eyes inches from hers.
And then, in a voice like cracking earth, it spoke:
"Say… your name."
Lira's mind went blank.
Not her village name. Not the name she had always used.
Something deeper. Older.
Something that hurt to remember.
The forest held its breath.
The creature's grip tightened.
"Lira," it urged softly, "tell the truth."
The Warden's eyes flared brighter.
"Or be unmade."
A pulse of fear surged through her—and then, beneath it… something else.
A memory.
A promise.
A name.
Her lips trembled.
And then—
"I am not Lira."
The forest shuddered.
The Warden stilled.
The creature's light flared.
Slowly, as if unlocking something buried for lifetimes, she spoke again:
"My name is—"