The forest opened up like a pathway.
Riven felt it the moment they crossed a low ridge and stepped into a valley beyond. The soil turned to ash-mud, softer beneath the foot, and the trees thinned into skeletal things, branches long and bare, swaying without the wind.
The sky overhead wasn't dark anymore, but it wasn't bright either—just a kind of a colorless stretch of nothing.
The air here tasted of old smoke. Veyla slowed beside him, her hand resting near the hilt of her blade, her eyes glancing around the forest, flicking to the trees like something was hiding in it.
"Something's not sitting right," she muttered, feeling uneasy.
Riven didn't need her to say it. The pressure in his chest was back again, the one that followed him constantly since the Site of Grace.
"I can feel it as well," he responded, his hand resting on his dagger.
Still, something pulled at him, like a tug beneath his ribs—the same as before. Not Grace, not even close to it. But it called out to him. He didn't question it.
"Be careful," she insisted, following him slowly from behind.
They walked until they reached the center of the grove, and there it was... another tree.
It stood alone in the hollow, half-sunken into the ash-choked earth. Its trunk was bone-pale, cracked, and coiled with dry, golden veins like lightning frozen mid-strike.
Its bark was stretched, groaning in different places. From its limbs, no leaves dangled from its stem, only thin, sinew-like threads that shifted in ways they probably shouldn't.
At its base, the earth itself was scorched black, as if the ground had burned just by touching its roots.
Vayla froze, her eyes widening as she stared at something afar.
Riven turned his sight to where she was staring. "Is that a Rootspire's sapling?" Riven asked, his voice low.
"I don't think so," she responded. "It looks like what's left of one."
They stood in silence for a long moment, staring at it. The longer Riven looked, the more uncertain he felt, like the tree had once been something pure and golden, but now it wore its own corpse like a disguise.
He trailed his fingers around it. "It looks like it's been here for a millennium," he said.
Then, a whisper sounded inside his head. It slithered behind his ears, into the corners of his mind, like mold creeping along stone.
"Ash-caller... Name-lost... Flame-wrought... step forward," the voice echoed.
He stepped forward before he even realized his body was moving.
"Don't go," Veyla warned. "It's not Grace, Riven. I don't know what it is, but it's not Grace."
"I know," he answered, standing right in front of it.
"So, why are you going toward it?"
"Because it feels like it knows who I am," he responded, then continued walking toward it.
The bark cracked as he approached, just one fissure down the center—small at first, then slowly widening as he reached out. Light didn't glow out from it.
Inside it was dark—not the kind of dark because of the absence of light. This one was thick, like an endless abyss.
Then a sudden surge of energy soared through him.
The second his hands touched the bark, he could feel it. It felt like heat.
Inside him, his chest ached, and he clenched his jaw. "Shit."
Something visible began to carve its way into his skin. He tried pulling away, but the grip of the tree was just too strong.
Veyla lunged toward him—fast—but the roots surged up around the tree's base, forming a wall that blocked her.
In a while, the tree shuddered, then fell silent again.
A spiraling, thorned sigil, neither graceful nor divine, was imprinted on his skin. It twisted like a flame.
The surrounding skin smoked faintly. It wasn't red—just black and ember-lit, a slow, steady burn that didn't seem to cool down.
Veyla ran toward him immediately. "Riven!"
She dropped beside him, her eyes wide with shock. "Your forearm..." she said slowly.
He held the arm like it was going to fall off anytime soon. "I know."
"It has a mark on it. What is it?" she asked.
He blinked. His breath was ragged, and his vision blurred. In that moment, he remembered something slight.
A throne of flame, a tower of bones, a voice whispering from beneath the world.
"You must live to fight another day."
The brand on his arm began pulsing, and he could now taste ash in the back of his throat.
"This isn't from Grace," she whispered. "It looks different, like magic."
"A curse, perhaps?" he asked, his hands still clutching his arm.
"Maybe," she responded.
"Why did it choose you to carry it on?" She asked as if he were supposed to know the answer.
He stared at her, then back at his hand, but he didn't say anything.
"Can you feel the energy?" she asked.
He looked at it. It just sat there as if it belonged to him. The mark on his palm looked dead, like it no longer had any life remaining.
"It feels like one god let go," he said, but gets cut off—
"And another bound you."
He simply nodded, though the interruption was not really needed.
The surrounding forest seemed to be watching them now. He looked at the roots of the tree, but they didn't move. The air felt thicker.
"Nothing in this world surprises me anymore," he said simply.
He stood up. "Let's go from here. I don't feel good staying here any longer than this," he said.
Veyla nodded. "Let's go, then."