Icariel's heart pounded like a drum made of bone and panic, each beat a warning bell in his chest. He stood beside Finn and Galien, the weight of unease hanging on his spine like a predator's breath. The feeling had gnawed at him since they arrived—and now, it was clawing deeper.

Galien's voice echoed in his mind like an omen. Two marks. Not three.

"You didn't leave three X marks, but two?" Icariel asked, trying to steady his voice, though dread coiled like a snake in his gut.

Galien nodded, jaw tight. "That's right. Two marks."

"But Father," Finn cut in, confusion cracking through his tone, "we saw three marks on the tree when we came this way. We only went left because Icariel had one of his hunches again."

Galien's gaze hardened. His eyes flicked toward the crimson bear lying in the dirt like a fallen nightmare. It was grotesque—bigger than any beast they'd known, its body soaked in gore, its lifeless fur a sheen of blood-rubies. Its eyes were hollow voids, and one massive limb still twitched faintly, bleeding dark heat into the ground.

But Galien's unease ran deeper.

This thing had too much mana—far too much for a beast.

He didn't voice it aloud. Not yet. Not with Icariel already coiled so tight he looked ready to snap. But something had tampered with his marks. Something intelligent.

"Boys," Galien said suddenly, voice like flint, "stand guard. I need to confirm something."

Finn nodded and drew his bow, planting himself near Galien's flank. Icariel turned toward the forest's edge, axe in hand, cold fingers clutching the worn handle like it was a lifeline.

His thoughts spun like a whirlwind of razors. "Why would someone change Galien's marks? Why lead people astray?" The trees whispered no answers—only silence that felt like held breath.

Galien dropped to the ground and crossed his legs, the motion fluid, his presence sharpening like a drawn blade.

Skill activated: [Third Eye.]

A flickering orange aura bloomed around him, light trembling like fire over oil. Icariel's eyes widened, transfixed. Even with his meager mana pool, he had refined it to…let him perceive the world differently—trace the invisible river that flowed through life and death alike.

While most villagers could barely feel the mana in their bones, Icariel, when fully concentrated, could see it dance, curl, rise—could trace its threads like veins beneath skin.

"Mana."

"The invisible lifeblood of the world. The breath between gods and monsters. Some are born with oceans. I was born with a drop."

But he had made that drop matter.

Galien was different. Awakened. A superhuman with a wellspring of mana flooding his body. And now, that flood surged toward his eyes—casting out tendrils of sensing, sweeping the forest like a thousand searching arms.

"He's probing the forest," Icariel thought. "Reaching beyond what we can see. But... why now? Unless…"

His eyes snapped back to the corpse.

The still-dead bear.

Its blood was still warm.

"He's not just checking for humans... he's hunting for another one of those things."

Terror licked up Icariel's spine. "That's why the voice told me to turn left..."

The voice never gave directions. Only warnings. Guidance, at most. It had pulled him this way for a reason—dragged him into this moment of death and revelation.

"Damn it… it brought me here to keep me from there..."

Galien's eyes flew open.

And at the same moment, Icariel whispered:

"Shit."

Galien surged upright. The aura snapped shut like a noose. His gaze was wildfire now.

"I sense other concentrations of mana. Strong ones," he said. "Coming from the direction you just came from."

Icariel's blood ran cold—ice threaded through his veins.

"There are more bears. Over there. And the adult hunters—any children with them—they're in danger. They went the wrong way because the signs were tampered with." His voice turned grave. "We'll collect this corpse later. For now, we run."

Finn nodded sharply, and Icariel gritted his teeth, clutching his axe tighter.

There are more. His lungs tightened like fists. "The voice sent me to Galien because the others wouldn't survive without him." And now he understood just how fragile they all were.

Galien snapped, "Catch up later. I'm going ahead."

Then he vanished.

No—moved, like the wind itself was fleeing from him. One moment he stood beside them. The next, he was a blur of mana and muscle tearing through the trees.

Finn turned to Icariel, breath short. "Can we push harder? Try to keep up?"

Before Icariel could answer, the voice murmured into his mind—quiet as a knife unsheathing.

[At this pace, you're fine. Don't raise it.]

"Tch." Icariel's voice was flat, hollow. "My heart could stop from all this blood pumping, you know that?"

Finn exhaled sharply and bolted ahead. "Fine! Catch up if you can. Not like it matters whether you're there or not!" he shouted, vanishing through the trees, his bitterness trailing like smoke.

Icariel let him go. The axe in his hand felt heavier. Or maybe that was just the weight of what was coming.

"I hope nothing happens to Galien…" he muttered.

Time passed in gasps and footsteps. The world blurred.

Then he saw it—the tree.

Three Xs. Carved like slashes across a throat. But Galien had said there were only two. "No one but us knows what these marks mean... no one but the people from Mjull."

So who had changed them?

And why?

Icariel's gut churned.

Someone had led the hunters astray. "One of us...?"

He veered toward the path, accelerating. His breath came ragged, his legs pushing against the ache.

"If Galien says two, then I believe two." But doubt clawed at the back of his skull, parasitic and cruel. "Who would betray them?"

And to what end?

He saw movement ahead.

Finn. Standing still, facing him.

Icariel slowed. His chest burned. "Finn?" he called, but couldn't hear what the boy was saying.

The voice struck like lightning:

[Jump to your right—NOW.]

Icariel didn't question. He moved—a blur to the side.

A split-second later, the world screamed.

A red slash of energy carved through where he had just stood, trees cleaved like wheat beneath a scythe. Flames bloomed from the trunks—hungry, silent, wrong.

Icariel turned, trembling. The axe in his hand felt like ice.

His dark eyes found Finn again.

"Finn! Are you all right?!"

The boy stood in the clearing. His mouth opened.

Blood spilled from his lips.

Silence.

Then his chest split—shoulder to hip. His body fell in pieces. One half like a broken doll, the other collapsing in a pool of steam and silence.

A wet, slick sound. Then stillness.

Icariel didn't scream.

He couldn't.

His soul had already begun to fracture.

Finn was gone.

[End of Chapter 2]