The forest east of Ayenro had no name on any map Rhazir carried, but the locals had muttered one when Kazi asked:
Dushegrove.
A twisted woodland thick with vines, moisture, and the kind of silence that pressed into your skin.
The air was damp. Heavy. And wrong.
Even with the sun overhead, little light made it through the canopy. Everything was filtered in green-gray shadows, and the further they traveled, the more the world seemed to hold its breath.
Rhazir walked ahead, scanner flickering in his hand, but Kazi's focus was elsewhere; on the way the ground pulsed faintly beneath her boots. The way the birds had stopped singing. The way the breeze no longer moved.
She slowed. "Something's off."
Dakarai nodded, his voice low. "Been off since we stepped into this 'grove'."
Rhazir glanced over his shoulder. "The scanner's reacting to something… something unstable."
"Define unstable please," Dakarai muttered.
A pulse beat through the earth again, stronger this time. A low hum rolled through the air, so low it was almost felt instead of heard.
Then the trees to their left snapped apart.
They all looked in that direction only to find the trees not broken like they had heard, but… shredded.
Something massive thundered through the underbrush. Kazi spun, fire erupting in her hand, just as a shape burst into view, a blur of moss, fur, and glowing purple veins that twisted up its body like living roots.
It had once been a stag. But now?
Its eyes glowed violet, its antlers cracked and jagged like resonance crystals, and its mouth dripped mist instead of breath.
The beast charged at the group.
Kazi dove aside, rolling across damp leaves. Dakarai flung a bolt of lightning, striking its shoulder; the creature bucked, but didn't slow. It moved like a storm barely contained inside muscle and bone.
"Don't kill it!" Rhazir barked. "It's corrupted and not conscious!"
Kazi didn't respond, she was already moving.
She leapt forward, slashing with a whip of flame. It connected, searing the side of the beast's flank, and the creature roared, swinging its antlers toward her.
Dakarai dashed in, sparks dancing along his hands. "Left!"
She pivoted, ducking just as he launched a concentrated bolt through the arch of her flame. It struck the beast in the chest, igniting a pulse of fire from the impact.
The creature staggered, just for a moment, then lunged again.
"Back!" Kazi shouted.
They split apart, circling it. Her mark burned with heat, not just from use, but from something in the air. The corrupted resonance here… it wasn't random.
It was left behind.
And something or someone, had tried to suppress it.
Dakarai caught the stag with a burst of static to the hind leg, dropping it to a knee. Kazi took the opening, rushing forward with a fiery uppercut that erupted from her palm and knocked the beast off its feet in a controlled explosion.
It crashed into the earth with a sound like breaking stone.
And then it lay still, still breathing but immobilized.
Kazi stood over it, panting, her body shaking from the energy drain.
"That wasn't normal," Dakarai said, kneeling to examine the stag.
Its body was still laced with violet resonance, glowing faintly like a dying ember. But it didn't look hostile anymore. Just broken. Like it had been used.
"Something forced a resonance channel into it," Kazi muttered. "Animals don't awaken. Not like this."
Rhazir finally stepped forward. "Residual fracture energy… it can bond to anything, given the right trigger. This one may have wandered too close."
"Or someone tested it," Kazi said bluntly.
Rhazir met her eyes. "Possibly."
She didn't like that word.
Not anymore.
They set up a temporary camp just beyond the grove, near a ridge where the corrupted energy felt weaker. The forest beyond the ridge was quieter, still unnatural, but no longer pulsing.
Kazi sat on a rock, staring into the flame she summoned in her palm. It danced restlessly, the color flickering between red and orange, with hints of violet at the edges.
She clenched her hand into a fist.
Dakarai approached, tossing her a water flask. "You alright?"
"I'm fine."
He sat beside her. "You know what that was, right?"
She nodded. "Whoever we're chasing, they've already started testing the limits of resonance. What we saw was not an awakening. That's… weaponizing."
Dakarai exhaled. "Which means we're running out of time."
Kazi stared ahead.
The stag hadn't attacked blindly.
It had moved with direction.
With focus.
Someone had sent it.
Or set the trap knowing they were coming.
Later that night, as the fire crackled low and the forest pressed close again, Rhazir sat apart, as he always did, eyes watching the shadows.
He pulled out his scanner.
But it was already off.
Instead, he opened a small case.
Inside were two items: a sliver of shattered resonance crystal, still glowing faintly, and a folded page covered in markings and Line glyphs.
He placed the crystal against the paper.
The glyphs responded, shifting under the pressure.
"Phase two," he whispered.
Then he tucked it all away before anyone noticed.
High above, at the edge of the next region, a figure stood atop a stone pillar, wind sweeping her cloak around her ankles.
There she was, Luma, watching the storm forming in the distance, thunderheads blooming like ink across the sky.
"The Mark's pulling harder," she said to herself.
She looked down at her palm, where her corrupted Mark pulsed in sync with something far away.
"They're close."
And so was the next bearer.