The sky hung low over the Deep woods, swollen with storm clouds and thick with silence. Trees rose like the ribcage of a dead god, their roots gnarled like fists, their branches strangling the last threads of light. The air pressed close—dense, watchful, as though the forest itself was listening.

 

Three travelers moved through it, swallowed by moss and shadow.

 

"Keep up, Ez," Kael growled, heat flashing at his palm as he hacked through a bramble that caught on his coat.

 

Ezryn didn't glance up. Silver-blue hair was bound in a knot high at his crown, sharp jaw tilted toward the ancient tome he held open in one hand. His boots found their path without pause, feet gliding as though the forest bent for him. "Your flames frighten off the woodland spirits," he replied, voice cool. "They'd tell us more than your blade ever could."

 

Kael scoffed. "We could use some bloody sunlight. Or a trail."

 

"Both of which we lack," came the third voice, calm and carved from authority.

 

Lirael stepped between them like water—quiet, precise, undeniable. Her raven-red hair shimmered where it caught the half-light, and her emerald eyes, clear and unblinking, swept the path ahead like twin blades unsheathing.

 

"You'd know that if you ever listened."

 

Kael's lip curled. "Didn't hear a better plan."

 

"You didn't listen."

 

Ezryn smirked. Sparks danced briefly across his fingertips. "What joy," he murmured, "to be lost in a haunted wood with Solhara's fallen princess and a barely-domesticated beast."

 

Kael turned. "Say that again and”

 

"Enough." Lirael's word cracked the air like a whip.

 

The forest was still. Even the wind obeyed.

 

Her voice dropped. "Something here is wrong. Do you feel it?"

 

Ezryn closed the tome with a soft thud, gaze shifting. "Yes," he murmured. "The lines are tangled. Like a snare waiting to be sprung."

 

Kael's hands twitched, itching for action. "Then we're already inside it."

 

He didn't wait for agreement.

 

He turned, striding away—partly to scout, partly to escape the rising weight in his chest.

 

The deeper he walked, the more the silence thickened. No wind. No birds. Even his footsteps felt too loud.

 

Then—he stopped.

 

A circle of pale stones opened before him, veined with moss and moonlight. It didn't feel natural. It felt…placed. As if someone had carved a breath into the world and never exhaled.

 

Kael stepped forward. Heat coiled under his boots. Not from the sun—there was no sun—but from the earth itself.

 

He crouched, reaching out.

 

His hand touched skin.

 

He froze.

 

Gently, he brushed away a layer of moss. Then another. Then more.

 

A shoulder. A collarbone. A neck.

 

His breath caught.

 

He scraped faster, until vines and dirt gave way—and the form beneath was no illusion.

 

She lay in the stone like a secret the forest had buried and forgotten.

 

Naked. Whole. Alive.

 

Pale skin glimmered faintly beneath the grime, smooth as glass, unmarred. Her ribs rose and fell in the shallow rhythm of sleep. Breasts soft against the vines. Hips sloped like sculpture, legs tangled in roots as though the forest had claimed her and now, reluctantly, was letting go.

 

Her face was…

 

He forgot to breathe.

 

Lashes like crow-feathers. A mouth parted as if caught in mid-breath. Skin kissed by moonlight. Her hair shimmered golden, shifted, as he watched, melting into deep black. Ink in water. Night unfurling.

 

Kael's chest ached.

 

She wasn't beautiful. She was scared. And he shouldn't be looking.

 

But he couldn't stop.

 

His fingers shook as he reached again, brushing a leaf from her hip, soil from the crook of her thigh. Reverent. Hesitant. A criminal in a temple.

 

Desire struck like hunger. Not just of the flesh deeper. Primal. Instinct bound in the marrow of men who dreamt of gods and were cursed for it.

 

He tore off his cloak, swallowing the throb in his throat, and covered her with shaking hands. The fabric fell soft over her skin—and that was when she moved.

 

A breath. Small. Delicate. Real.

 

Then—

 

Her fingers twitched.

 

And her eyes opened.

 

They were gold. Not gold like coins or candlelight, gold like burning dawn, like one that can see truth in you. Yet, to Kael, the golden eyes weirdly was too terrible to look at.

 

Kael felt his soul fractured beneath them.

 

Then—just as suddenly—the light dimmed. Her hair spilled into ink-dark waves. Her gaze faded to green green like spring after ruin.

 

She blinked.

 

Soft lips parted. Her voice cracked, unsure.

 

"Who… are you?"

 

Kael didn't answer. Couldn't.

 

Her brow furrowed.

 

"…Who am I?"

 

He exhaled sharply, realizing he'd been holding breath like a prayer.

 

"You were inside the stone," he said, voice hoarse. "I mean, buried."

 

She turned her head slowly, eyes tracing the sky as if trying to name it. "I remember light. A voice. Then nothing."

 

She clutched his cloak tighter around her. Her hand trembled.

 

Kael shifted closer. "You're burning."

 

"It cold," she whispered.

 

"I'll take you to the others."

 

Her eyes darted. "Others?"

 

"You'll see."

 

He lifted her, one arm behind her knees, the other steady against her back. She nestled against him without thinking. Her skin was too warm. Her breath was too light. His heart beats harder.

 

Behind them, the stone ring cracked.

 

The earth sighed.

 

And the gods, somewhere, turned their gaze.

 

At camp, firelight flickered against stones. Ezryn sat cross-legged, reading beneath a floating orb of pale lightning. Blue-silver strands framed a face too elegant for cruelty—but too tired for mercy.

 

Lirael stood guard, crimson hair coiled high, fan at her side, every inch a warning dressed in grace.

 

Kael stepped from the trees.

 

Lirael's brow arched. "You took too long."

 

Ezryn looked up. "And you return… with this."

 

Kael shifted. "She was in the stone. Sleeping."

 

Kael laid her gently on a patch of moss. Lirael moved to cover her with a shawl. Ezryn extended his hand, crackling magic at his fingertips.

 

"…Her essence is so displaced," he murmured. "As if it has left so long without functioning and suddenly returning to itself."

 

Kael frowned. "She's breathing fine."

 

Then—

 

Her eyes opened fully.