Chapter 9

The trembling deepened. Roots shifted underfoot, cracking the wet earth open. Then came the sound of tearing bark—a low, resonant groan that made Sylvia’s stomach twist.

Something was rising.

From the base of a massive cedar, the bark split wider and wider, unfurling like a wound. Vines coiled outward, slick and green, dragging up a shape that almost—almost—resembled a body. Its limbs were branches, its hair a snarl of ivy and moss. Eyes opened in the hollow of its face, two dim lights burning through layers of wood.

Sylvia couldn’t breathe.

The creature moved with the slow weight of growing things. When it turned its gaze toward them, leaves shivered loose in its wake.

Lavinia didn’t bow, but she lowered her head, voice low and reverent. “We offer passage,” she said. “We keep the vow.”

The spirit’s reply wasn’t words but a sound — the creak of ancient timber, the sigh of the wind through hollow bark. Sylvia couldn’t tell if it was speaking to Lavinia or to the forest itself.

Its gaze lingered on her. She felt it in her bones — a curious pressure, as though roots were threading through her thoughts.

Then Lavinia spoke again, sharper this time, in that same language Sylvia didn’t know. The spirit stilled. Slowly, it turned away, its form dissolving into the trees, until it was nothing but vines and mist again.

Sylvia stood shaking, heart hammering. “What was that?” she breathed.

Lavinia looked at her, eyes darker than the soil beneath them.

“Not what,” she said. “Who.”