The forest swallowed them whole.
Once beyond Greyrest's final watchtower, the road dissolved into a narrow path flanked by ancient trees, their twisted arms blotting out the sky. The world here was quieter, too quiet. The birds were gone. The wind had stilled. And every hoofbeat felt like a drum in the dark.
They rode without speaking for hours, the weight of the city left behind but not forgotten.
Ethan kept his gaze forward, eyes scanning the underbrush. "We'll make camp by dusk. No fire."
Gerran's voice was low. "You think we're being followed?"
"I think we're not alone."
Behind them, Elen muttered, "I felt it three turns back. There's movement on both flanks. Nothing close. Yet."
Gerran adjusted the strap on his satchel, where his short-bladed axe rested beside flares and bandages. "Scouts?"
Ethan shook his head. "Too quiet for bandits. Too skilled for wanderers."
They pressed on, deeper into the thickets until the canopy opened slightly, revealing a clearing framed by broken stone. A crumbled waystation from the old age, likely a marker from before the Cataclysm. Moss covered the remnants of carved runes. Ivy gripped shattered columns. And in the center stood a stone basin — dry, cracked, and blackened by time.
"Here," Ethan said, sliding down from his horse. "We'll rest for now."
Elen immediately began checking the perimeter while Gerran unpacked rations.
Ethan knelt by the basin, fingertips brushing the interior. The black marks weren't from fire.
Burned blood.
His jaw clenched. Ritualistic. Old. But not forgotten.
"Someone used this," he said.
Elen returned, crouching beside him. "There are offerings just beyond the ridge. Fresh ones."
"Describe them."
"Bones. Small animals. Wrapped in vine and cloth. Arranged in a spiral. Recent. Two days old, maybe less."
"Still warm," Gerran added grimly as he tossed a cold, stripped bone near the mossy stones.
They weren't just near Blackmere now.
They were in its shadow.
That night, they kept a rotating watch.
Ethan sat cross-legged, eyes on the treeline, as Gerran dozed nearby and Elen kept half-conscious vigilance with a blade resting across her lap.
The stars above barely blinked through the canopy. But Ethan saw movement, subtle, deliberate. Eyes. Watching. Never too close, never far enough to ignore.
Then came the whisper.
Soft. Almost childlike. Not from a voice, but something deeper, a sensation that crawled up the spine and made the heart beat just a little louder.
"Return."
He gripped the hilt of his dagger.
"Did you hear that?" he asked.
Gerran stirred. Elen stiffened. "No." What did you hear?
A voice, telling us to return. Ethan replied.
They rose together, weapons unsheathed, circling back-to-back.
But nothing came. The whisper faded like mist at sunrise.
And the watchers in the trees retreated, for now.
They reached Blackmere by noon the next day.
The path narrowed to a stone bridge half-swallowed by ivy and age. On the far side, the ruins of a once-proud fortress stood tall or at least, what remained of it.
Stone towers leaned like drunkards, walls had been swallowed by root and bramble, and a strange red fungus clung to the stones like skin.
Smoke coiled from several places, and shapes moved behind shattered battlements, some cloaked, others armored, but all moving with purpose.
"Looks like more than just scavengers," Gerran said.
Elen slid a spyglass from her coat. "Twenty-seven that I can see. No visible insignia. Several appear armed with forged blades, not salvaged. And one tower's been reinforced recently."
Ethan studied the layout. "They're restoring it."
"To what end?" Gerran muttered.
Ethan's voice dropped. "We'll find out."
They dismounted and moved through the underbrush, circling wide and approaching from the southern edge, where the walls had collapsed completely. Carefully, they stepped over stone and into the remnants of Blackmere.
Here, time itself had warped. The silence was suffocating, yet beneath it lay a thrum — not sound, but sensation. A pulse in the bones. As if the very ground remembered the violence that once drenched it.
Elen led the way toward a half-collapsed temple. "This was the center once. Heart of Blackmere."
The closer they came, the stronger the sensation grew.
Inside the ruins, lanterns burned with greenish flame. Symbols had been etched freshly into the walls, circles within circles, eyes, and antlers. And in the center, a stone pedestal bore a bundle wrapped in crimson cloth.
Ethan reached for it.
"Wait" Elen started, but it was too late.
As his fingers touched the cloth, the room shifted.
Suddenly, he was elsewhere — not standing, but floating. Not in ruins, but in darkness.
A voice thundered without sound.
"You return. Woundwalker. Flamebearer. Bound by oath and undone by name."
Images flashed: fire sweeping through forests, cities drowning in ash, eyes glowing gold beneath a red moon.
Then — stillness. And the name again:
"Ethan Grey is not all you are."
He staggered back, gasping, vision clearing to find Elen gripping his arm and Gerran pulling him out of the chamber.
"What the hell just happened?" Gerran asked, eyes wide.
"I... Don't know," Ethan murmured. "A warning. Maybe more."
They didn't wait to find out.
Outside, the wind had shifted.
More figures were gathering now. Hooded. Armored. Chanting began, low and rhythmic, from the far tower.
Elen stared. "They're performing a rite."
"Then we're out of time," Ethan said.
They pulled back toward the breach they'd entered from, but this time, they weren't alone.
Two figures stepped from the shadows, blades drawn.
"Travelers shouldn't be here," one said, his voice muffled behind a dark iron mask.
"We were just admiring the view," Gerran said, already stepping into a stance.
"No one admires Blackmere," the other growled. "They serve. Or they burn."
The fight was swift.
Gerran struck low while Elen moved high, daggers flashing. Ethan swept the legs of the larger figure, pinning him with a knee before driving the hilt of his blade into his temple. Elen's opponent crumpled with a quiet gasp.
They didn't linger.
Through the breach. Back to the woods. Horses waiting.
As they galloped from the ruins, Ethan turned once more.
Smoke now rose steadily from Blackmere.
And from the tower, a single red banner unfurled, stitched with antlers and flame.
They didn't speak until they reached the outer forest again.
Elen broke the silence. "They've returned. Whoever they are."
"They never left," Ethan said.
"And you?" Gerran asked. "What happened back there?"
Ethan didn't answer right away.
Because something had changed.
Not just in Blackmere, but in him.
A name. A memory. A truth buried in blood and ash.
"I think," Ethan finally said, "we've just brushed against something far older than this war. And far more dangerous."
They rode on.
And behind them, Blackmere awoke.