The gates of Valdy Manor shut behind her with a hollow clang, the sound reverberating through her bones like judgment.

Reith did not look back. She could not.

Every step into the night carried her farther from Ciel's desperate devotion, farther from the suffocating weight of Nahida's name. The glow of the wards faded behind her, leaving only shadows to press close. The air beyond felt colder, heavier. Branches clawed at her cloak, roots snagged at her boots, as if the forest itself tried to drag her back into the lie she had abandoned.

Still, she pressed forward, until the last faint light of the manor was devoured by trees.

At the threshold of the Stillwood, she felt it. Mana's familiar hum faltered, stuttered, then died. The world exhaled silence.

Here, magic did not breathe.

The emptiness was worse than the cold. For the first time since awakening in this cursed body, Reith stood in a world stripped bare, where no enchantments stirred beneath the skin, where no wards or sigils whispered of her borrowed name.

It should have been freeing.
Instead, the hollowness hollowed her chest with terror.

Days blurred into hunger and exhaustion.

She followed deer trails where roots coiled like serpents through the soil, her satchel lighter with every mile. Bread hardened to stone, crumbling like ash against her teeth. Her crystal vial drained until its last drops clung to glass.

Nights were worse.

She slept beneath twisted roots and gnarled branches, her cloak thin against the damp air. Sleep never held long. Dreams tore her awake: ink dripping down walls, turquoise eyes glowing in darkness, a voice whispering through her marrow, Protect Sinclair. No matter what.

Each time she woke, her chest heaved, her heart hammering as though it would break free.

By the third dawn, her lips were cracked, her throat raw, her steps faltering. Hunger gnawed at her stomach until laughter, bitter and ragged, burst from her throat.

"I carried burdens to my grave once," she rasped to the trees. Her voice scraped like broken glass. "And now I am meant to die under hers?" She swiped at her mouth with the back of her hand, eyes burning. "Why should I care if this world burns? It is not even mine."

Her words dissolved into silence. The Stillwood devoured every sound.

The hush pressed against her skull until her bones ached with it.

Then came water.

At first it was faint, so soft she thought it was a phantom sound. Then it grew steady, insistent, threading through the quiet like a lifeline. The murmur of a stream.

Reith staggered toward it. Thorns tore fresh cuts into her cloak, branches whipped her face, roots clutched her boots, but she stumbled forward, chasing the sound until the trees broke into a clearing bathed in moonlight.

At its center lay a pool, its surface still as glass, reflecting not the sky but something deeper, something that felt placed by fate itself.

Reith fell to her knees and drank, water spilling down her chin. The cold shocked her awake, anchoring her against the haze of exhaustion.

And then she felt it.

Eyes.

The hair on her nape prickled. Her head snapped up.

Across the pool crouched a figure half-shrouded in shadow. A boy.

Black hair fell in uneven strands around his face. His posture was relaxed, yet unreadable. But it was his eyes that froze her. Red, faintly glowing, unblinking beneath the moonlight, fixed on her as though she had been expected.

Her breath caught. She stumbled back, boots skidding on wet stone. "Who... who is there?"

The boy tilted his head. His voice, low and steady, cut across the clearing.

"You are far from the manor, are you not?"

Her stomach clenched. He knew. Somehow, he knew.

Slowly, he rose, stepping into the light. His clothes were plain, worn from travel, threadbare at the sleeves. He looked no older than twenty-one, yet the calm way he moved, unhurried and deliberate, was nothing like a common wanderer. Even ragged, his presence pressed against the clearing with a weight she could not name.

"Do not be afraid," he said. His tone was not gentle, not cruel, only certain. "If I wished to harm you, I would not have waited until now."

A chill climbed her spine. Her heartbeat thundered. "Then what do you want?"

His gaze drifted to her satchel, to the edge of bread peeking out.

"You brought food."

Her chest tightened. "...You are hungry?"

A ghost of a smile curved his lips. "Are we not all?"

Something inside her fear cracked. Perhaps it was exhaustion, perhaps hunger, perhaps the strange steadiness in his eyes. Her hands shook as she pulled the loaf from her satchel. Without thinking, without weighing the risk, she tore it unevenly, giving the larger half away, the way she always had.

She tossed the piece across the pool.

He caught it effortlessly, as though it had been meant for his hand all along. For a moment, though, he did not eat. His red eyes flicked from the bread to her face, the moonlight glinting strangely in their depths.

"You... gave me more." His voice was low, almost cautious.

Reith blinked, startled by the words. "Did I?" she murmured. She glanced down at the smaller half still in her hands, then shrugged faintly. "It doesn't matter."

He studied her, unmoving. Most people clung to every crumb when it was all they had. But this girl, trembling and hungry, had given him the greater share without hesitation, as if the thought of keeping it never crossed her mind.

"You should keep the larger piece," he said, his tone flat, almost testing.

Reith shook her head. "I'm used to less." The words slipped out before she could stop them, quiet, almost ashamed.

His gaze lingered on her longer than before, sharper now. In silence, he bit into the bread.

He ate without haste, each bite measured and deliberate. Not like a starving beast. Not like a pampered noble. Like a man who understood the worth of every crumb.

When he finished, he brushed the crumbs from his fingers onto his trousers. His red eyes caught hers again, glowing faintly brighter under the moon, heavy with unspoken thought.

"You're... unusual," he said at last, his voice quiet.

Reith flinched, unsure if it was a compliment or a warning.

But he didn't explain. He did not ask her why. He only looked at her as though she were a puzzle he had not expected to find, and one he wasn't ready to solve.

"You should not be here," he said at last.

Her voice came sharper than she intended. "Neither should you."

For the first time, his expression shifted. A flicker of amusement ghosted across his face, softening the ember in his gaze.

"Perhaps," he murmured, the word carrying both weight and dismissal. His lips curved faintly, though whether it was mockery or something else, she could not tell. "But here we are."

The pool rippled softly between them, disturbed only by the faint night breeze. The moon hung heavy overhead, a silver coin suspended in the black sky, its light carving his features into sharp planes of shadow and fire. Around them, the Stillwood pressed close, its trees dark and ancient, their branches leaning as though listening.

For a while, silence reigned. The kind of silence that scraped against the bones, stretched taut until it demanded to be broken. His eyes never left hers.

At last, he asked, "What is your name?"

Reith froze. Her throat tightened. The false name pressed against her lips, heavy and suffocating: Nahida Valdy.

You are still my sister, Ciel's voice whispered in memory. You are still Nahida.

Her hands trembled. She wanted to obey that voice. To carry the lie. To return to Ciel's devotion, to the fragile warmth of belonging he offered. To slip into the role of Nahida until it became her skin.

But she was not Nahida.

And this boy with red eyes, piercing her as though he could strip the lie from her flesh, would not let her be.

The silence pressed harder, like a hand around her throat. Her chest ached with it, her breath quickened, until at last she could no longer bear the weight.

Her voice broke the night.

"...Reith. My name is Reith."

The words trembled at first, fragile as a newborn flame. But once spoken, they steadied. They rooted. They were hers.

For the first time since awakening in this body, she had spoken the truth.

The boy studied her. His gaze was sharp, unreadable, but it lingered on her as though weighing something unseen. The pool reflected the glow of his eyes, twin sparks of crimson burning in the silver-dark water.

At last, he nodded once, slow and deliberate, as though sealing a pact.

"Soran," he said. His voice was low, carrying an old weight. "You may call me Soran."

The name dropped into the clearing like an anchor. Heavy. Binding. Inevitable.

Reith shivered. Names had power. To give it was to open a door that could not be closed.

She clutched her smaller half of the bread tighter in her hands, though she had forgotten her hunger.

Her mind whispered she should leave. That she should return to Ciel's unwavering devotion, to the safety of a brother who believed she was still Nahida. That she should take back the lie and live within it, because lies were warmer than the cold edge of truth.

But the thought of returning made her chest constrict. The gates of the Valdy house felt impossibly far, already locked against her.

Under the silver gaze of the moon, with the Stillwood pressing close and the boy's red eyes fixed upon her, she knew.

She was not going back.
Not tonight.
Perhaps not ever.

The pool rippled once more, reflecting moonlight and fire, binding her to the moment. Somewhere in the shadows, a crow called, sharp and echoing, like the toll of fate.

Reith's shoulders tightened. The sound lingered in the air longer than it should have, stretching thin, unnatural. The forest seemed to hush after it, as though holding its breath.

She drew her cloak tighter, unease prickling at the back of her neck. The silence pressed harder, heavier, until even the steady ripple of water felt too loud.

"You hear that?" Soran's voice broke the stillness, low and measured.

Her lips parted. "The crow?"

His gaze did not waver. Crimson light flared faintly in his eyes. "Not just the crow."

Reith swallowed hard. She strained to listen. At first, she heard nothing. Then—soft, uneven, came the faint rustle of branches. The sound was wrong, not wind, not animal. It crept closer, circling, as though something unseen moved just beyond the clearing.

Her pulse quickened. "What is it?"

Soran rose smoothly to his feet, every motion controlled, deliberate. The pool split his reflection into fractured pieces of silver and flame. "Eyes," he said. "Watching."

The word sank into her chest like ice.

Reith turned her head, searching the shadows between the trees. For a heartbeat she thought she saw them, shapes, vague and shivering, too thin to be human, too fluid to belong to anything alive. They melted back into the dark before she could be sure.

Her grip tightened around the crust of bread still in her hand.

The forest was no longer silent. Low whispers bled from the trees now, too faint to catch but sharp enough to raise every hair along her arms. The air smelled wrong too, heavy and cold, like damp ash after rain.

Soran's eyes narrowed, the red in them burning hotter.

"They're closer than I thought," he muttered. Then, louder, steady: "Stay alert, Reith."

Her heart hammered at the sound of her own name in his mouth. The world tilted with it, but she forced herself to nod.

The whispers grew. Branches cracked somewhere deep in the Stillwood. The pool rippled again, though no wind touched it.

And then, silence.

A silence so thick it smothered the world. Even the crow was gone.

Reith's breath caught, shallow and uneven. The forest pressed closer, its trees looming taller, their skeletal branches stretched like claws against the sky. Shadows thickened at their roots, spilling forward as though the darkness itself had weight. Something was there. Just beyond sight. Waiting.

Her skin prickled, her body screaming for her to run, yet her legs rooted to the ground. The pool between them rippled once more, though no breeze stirred the clearing. The silver reflection of the moon fractured, breaking into shards that wavered across the water like glass about to shatter.

Soran shifted beside her, the subtle movement taut with precision. He did not speak. He did not need to. His very presence cut through the night, sharp and steady, like a blade drawn but not yet swung. His crimson eyes glowed faintly brighter, their burn a defiance against the suffocating dark.

And then it came.

The first scream tore through the forest.

High. Inhuman.
The sound split the night like breaking glass, echoing across the trees until the entire Stillwood seemed to cry out with it.

Reith recoiled, her hands clapping over her ears though it did nothing to soften the noise. It was not a sound meant for human senses. It clawed through her skull, vibrating in her bones, cold and jagged, until her vision blurred.

The trees trembled. Leaves shook though no wind stirred them. Somewhere beyond the treeline, branches cracked under unseen weight.

The scream warped, splitting into several voices at once, all shrieking in a chorus of rage and hunger. They rose and fell, weaving through the night air until it was impossible to tell how many there were, or where they waited.

Reith's knees buckled. Her stomach twisted, and bile rose in her throat. Every instinct screamed to run, to flee back through the manor gates and never return to this cursed forest.

But she could not move.

Her gaze locked on Soran. He stood perfectly still, his posture braced, eyes fixed on the shifting dark between the trees. His expression had not changed, but the air around him felt heavier now, taut and coiled, as if something far greater than human strength waited beneath his skin.

The pool between them shuddered with another ripple, black shadows streaking across its surface like ink spilled into clear water.

Reith's voice caught in her throat, barely a whisper. "What are they?"

Soran did not look at her. His hand flexed once, controlled, as though testing the air. His eyes narrowed, red light burning in the silver night.

"Spirits," he said quietly. "And they have found us."

Reith's blood froze.

And before she could even draw a breath, the clearing darkened, shadows spilling forward like ink, rushing straight for them, a tide that swallowed moonlight, silence, and breath alike.