Kael froze. The air around them shifted—still and heavy, as if even the wind had stopped breathing. Mira turned slowly, dagger tight in her grip, eyes scanning the darkness between the trees.
Then, it moved again.
A rustle. A breath.
Not Watchers. Something else.
"What was that?" Kael whispered.
"Wildborn," Mira replied, voice low. "The Hollow doesn't just hide from people—it hides things people forgot."
Kael's hand instinctively lit with fire, but Mira grabbed his wrist.
"No flame," she warned. "They hunt heat. Sound. Movement."
He nodded, smothering the fire to a faint glow. They crept forward, deeper into the twisting woods. Every step felt like a gamble. Moss muffled their footsteps, but the trees were watching—he could feel it. Or maybe it was the flame inside him sensing something older, more primal.
Then he saw them.
Eyes.
Dozens of them.
Reflecting in the dark—slitted, glimmering, silent.
Kael's breath caught.
From the shadows emerged a creature unlike anything he'd imagined. Wolf-like, but stretched too long, with bark-textured skin and antlers burning with dim violet light. It didn't growl. It simply stared.
Mira's hand tightened around his.
"They're guardians," she said. "They won't attack unless provoked."
"Then let's not provoke."
As if understanding, the creature tilted its head. It stepped aside, opening the path.
Kael blinked. "It's letting us pass?"
Mira nodded slowly. "You've been marked by the Emberroot. The forest knows. For now, it accepts you."
They walked past the creature in silence, its eyes following them until the trees swallowed it again.
Eventually, the path opened into a clearing. Crumbling stone pillars stood crooked in a circle, half-swallowed by vines and time. At its center, a fallen tower—broken and burnt—leaned like a dying tree.
"This is Flamewatch Hold," Mira said. "What's left of it."
Kael looked around. The air here felt old. Tired. Yet beneath the ruin, something stirred.
"The flame remembers this place," he said quietly.
Mira gave a half-smile. "Then maybe it remembers what was taken."
Kael stepped toward the ruin, drawn by the whisper of forgotten fire and the promise of what lay buried.
They would rest here. But not for long.
War was coming.