The forest closed around them like a dream that had forgotten how to end.

The Glimmerwood did not merely surround; it absorbed. Sunlight filtered through leaves that changed hue with each breath, painting their faces in shifting colors. Roots pulsed faintly underfoot, not inert but alive, coursing with veins of emerald light. It was less a forest than a vast, breathing cathedral — each tree a pillar, each branch an arch.

And yet, beneath the wonder, a silence pressed. The kind of silence that listens.

Lakvenor broke it first. “Does anyone else feel like we’re trespassing in someone’s diary?”

Sira, walking ahead, did not laugh. Her staff glowed softly, attuned to the forest. She heard voices in the rustling leaves — faint, indistinct, but insistent, as though the wood itself were trying to speak.

Rael’s voice, low, calm, steadied them. “We are guests. Walk as guests. No steel unless steel is demanded.”

Yet Flame-Edge still thrummed at his side, uneasy.

The Shifting Path

The forest did not yield easily.

One moment the trail wound clear between luminous ferns, the next it vanished, swallowed by roots that had not been there a heartbeat before. Trees shifted subtly, imperceptibly, until the way behind no longer resembled the way ahead.

Lakvenor cursed. “It’s playing tricks. We’ll wander in circles until our bones join the roots.”

“No,” Sira said softly. Her eyes glowed faintly, emerald reflecting the light of the wood. “It is not trickery. It is trial.”

Rael looked at her. “And the price of failure?”

Her silence was answer enough.

The path bent downward, into a hollow where light grew dim. Mist curled low, clinging to their boots. Shapes flickered within the fog — faces, perhaps, or shadows given form.

Whispers rose.

They did not come from the mist, nor from the trees, but from within. Rael heard his father’s voice, sharp with judgment: You are unworthy of Solara. A flame that gutters in exile.

Lakvenor’s whispers were different — mocking laughter, countless voices sneering: Second-born, second-best. Always in his shadow. His hand tightened on the staff, lightning sparking faintly.

Sira froze. Her whispers were not taunts, but pleas. Countless voices cried out in pain, begging for release, calling her Daughter of Verdancy, Key of Roots. Her chest ached as though something deep within her wanted to answer.

The mist thickened. Roots shifted, weaving walls around them. The Glimmerwood was not guiding — it was testing.

Trial of Verdancy

The ground trembled. From the hollow’s center rose a figure wrought from bark and crystal. Taller than any giant they had yet seen, its body was interwoven with vines that pulsed with light. Its face was a mask of polished wood, eyes twin lanterns of amber.

It carried no weapon, for it needed none.

“Child of Verdancy,” it intoned, voice deep as an earthquake. “Prove thy claim.”

Sira swallowed. “What claim?”

“Blood remembers. Roots remember. The Core remembers. Speak, or be consumed.”

The giant raised a hand, and the roots around them surged, walls tightening. Lakvenor spun his staff, lightning hissing. “Finally! Something that understands directness!”

Rael held him back. “No. Not ours. Hers.” His gaze fixed on Sira. “This is for you, Sira.”

Her heart thundered. She could feel it now, a pulse deep within her bones, older than her blood — as though the forest itself beat in rhythm with her veins. She raised her staff. “I am no queen, no conqueror. But I am of Mithila, born of Janara’s line. If the Verdant Core remembers, then let it see that I remember too!”

The staff blazed green, roots twisting toward her. Instead of binding, they wrapped her gently, spiraling up her arms like vines to sunlight. The giant lowered its head.

“Accepted.”

With that word, the hollow changed.

The mist thinned, revealing a pedestal of stone and crystal, half-buried in roots. Upon it lay a fragment — a shard of luminous glass etched with runes that shimmered between gold and green.

The first piece of the Aeon Codex.

The Codex Shard

Rael stepped forward, reverent, as though approaching a flame that might burn or bless. “The Codex,” he whispered. “I had thought it legend.”

Sira lifted the shard carefully. The runes shifted under her touch, rearranging into patterns that made sense for a heartbeat — then dissolved again. She felt knowledge thrumming within it, vast and terrible, like the forest’s whispers distilled into crystal.

“It… wants to be whole,” she murmured. “It remembers more than it shows.”

Rael’s expression hardened. “If Ravyn seeks these, we cannot allow him to gather them first.”

Lakvenor, peering at the shard, frowned. “Lovely. A puzzle piece that talks. Just what we needed.”

Sira held it close, and for a moment, the whispers hushed. The pain in her chest eased. The forest seemed to sigh, branches rustling in relief.

The guardian-giant stepped aside, dissolving back into root and bark. The path forward opened, brighter now, the forest less hostile.

The trial was passed. The covenant, for now, honored.

Departing the Hollow

As they left the clearing, Rael glanced once more at the shard. His mind turned not only to prophecy, but to the power in Sira’s hands. The prophecy spoke of the one who could shatter fate — restore balance or end it. Was it he… or her?

Lakvenor walked behind them, muttering. “Exile was supposed to be simple. Wander, brood, maybe fight a dragon. Not ancient forests whispering family secrets.”

Rael almost smiled. Almost. “Ayara does not grant simplicity. Only truth.”

Sira said nothing. She could still feel the roots’ embrace on her skin, the way the forest had known her. The Codex shard pulsed faintly at her side, a weight both protective and dangerous.

For the first time, she wondered if exile was not Rael’s trial alone. Perhaps the forest had spoken true. Perhaps it was hers as well.