The forest was alive—but not with birdsong or beasts.
It breathed.
The trees in Coilroot twisted toward the sky like gnarled fingers, bark blackened, pulsing faintly beneath the surface with lines of glowing blue sap. The roots didn't lie still. They moved, slow and deliberate, like serpents coiling beneath the dirt.
Kairo had heard stories.
People called this place haunted. The remains of a battle between Shardbound armies and gods that no longer had names. Some said the roots drank blood. Others claimed Coilroot was alive—an ancient, wounded thing that remembered every footfall across its soil.
And now it remembered them.
"We don't speak past the mark," Aeska whispered.
They stood at the forest's edge, just before an arch made from two fallen tree trunks, scorched with runes. Kairo watched her kneel and press her fingers to the earth. She murmured in the old tongue, her breath turning silver as she spoke.
The runes glowed briefly, then dimmed.
"What is that?" he asked quietly.
"A gate," she replied. "This place doesn't like outsiders. If we walk in uninvited, the forest wakes."
"And if we are invited?"
She gave him a flat look. "Then it only listens."
That didn't sound like much of a comfort.
Kairo followed her under the archway, tightening the strap on his spear. The deeper they walked, the heavier the air became. Light filtered down in sickly green shafts, the mist clinging to their boots like fingers.
No birds. No insects. Just the whisper of roots shifting beneath the soil.
"How did Yui survive this?" Kairo muttered.
"She didn't come through here," Aeska said. "She fled from Bone Mountain. This was her escape route. The forest was in her favor then."
Kairo didn't understand how a forest could favor anyone. But he knew better than to question things too loudly in a world like this.
A low groan echoed through the woods.
Aeska stopped. Her hand went to the hilt of her curved dagger.
They weren't alone.
From behind a wall of moss-covered bark, a figure emerged—half-human, half-root. Its skin was barklike, stretched too tight over elongated limbs, and its face was blank save for a vertical crack where a mouth might once have been.
"Forestborn," Aeska said, voice low.
The creature sniffed the air and tilted its head. When it spoke, the voice came from all around, as though the forest itself whispered through it.
"Ashborn… child of smoke… broken seal…"
Kairo tensed.
It was speaking to him.
"You carry the curse of the last eye. The blood of the flame. You seek the heart."
Aeska raised her blade. "Don't answer it. Forestborn trade in prophecy. If you speak, it may bind you."
But Kairo stepped forward.
"If you know who I am," he said, "then you know what I'm looking for."
The creature didn't move.
"She waits beneath the black mountain. Wrapped in iron. Her voice sings in your bones. But she is not alone."
Kairo's jaw clenched.
"Another walks with her," the Forestborn said. "An Echo Prince. Born of sorrow. Cloaked in ruin. He will open the gate, but he will not let her go."
Aeska's eyes widened. "The Echo Prince is a myth."
The Forestborn turned toward her. "All myths are truths wrapped in silence."
Then it vanished—into roots, into soil, into mist.
Kairo exhaled, slow and steady.
"You shouldn't have talked to it," Aeska said sharply. "Now the forest knows your intent. It may test you."
"I don't care," he said. "I need to know what's waiting for her. Who this Echo Prince is. Why she's still alive."
Aeska studied him for a long moment.
Then nodded.
They walked on in silence, the forest closing behind them.
But now it was listening.
And somewhere deeper in Coilroot, the ground began to shift—preparing its trial for the Ashborn and the traitor Shardbound who walked with him.