Chapter 8

They moved on. The path was slick with runoff, each step sinking into mud that clung and sucked like it wanted them to stay. The air felt different now—heavier, humming low in the bones.

Sylvia couldn’t stop glancing back at the tree. It stood half-shrouded in mist, the feather still glinting faintly where she’d left it. Something about it made her throat tighten.

“What did you say back there?” Sylvia asked, after a while.

Lavinia didn’t answer. She was walking ahead, cloak dragging, eyes fixed on the dark between the trees.

“You were speaking,” Sylvia pressed. “That language—”

“It isn’t for you to hear,” Lavinia snapped. But then, softer, almost to herself: “Not yet.”

Sylvia frowned. “Not yet?”

Lavinia didn’t respond. The silence between them stretched, sharp as glass. Then the forest shuddered—just once, like something deep beneath the roots had turned over in its sleep.

Sylvia froze. Lavinia didn’t. She only looked back once, her expression unreadable, and said,

“Keep walking.”

At first, Sylvia thought it was only the wind. The branches hissed above them, a low rush through wet leaves. But then it shifted—too steady, too rhythmic. Like breath.

The forest wasn’t quiet anymore. The storm had washed it raw, and now it murmured back to itself. The sound came from everywhere—roots, moss, the dripping leaves—and yet it seemed to circle them.

Lavinia didn’t flinch. She moved like she’d expected this.

“What’s happening?” Sylvia whispered.

Lavinia’s gaze flicked toward the canopy, eyes catching the gray light. “It heard me.”

Before Sylvia could ask what it was, the air broke open with a sound like creaking wood and the groan of something ancient waking. The ground shivered beneath their boots. Water bled from the soil, dark and thick, trailing along the path in slow veins.

Lavinia dropped to one knee, pressed her palm to the earth again, and murmured the same strange language—faster now, urgent. The rhythm of it was wrong, too many syllables for a single breath.

Sylvia stumbled back. “Lavinia—”

“Be still,” she hissed. “It’s listening.”