The howl echoed through the forest again.
Lower now. Closer. No longer a warning, but a declaration.
Something was coming.
Kaelen crouched low, blades drawn, eyes scanning the treeline. Her voice was sharp but steady. "We can't take it here. It's open ground. We move."
The Druid—still without a name—nodded instinctively. Her hand gripped the vine-wrapped totem as she whispered a word she didn't fully understand: "Vallor." A flash of green shimmered at her feet, and her boots took root for a heartbeat before the energy surged upward, wrapping her legs in bark-like armor.
"I'll cover our retreat," she said.
Kaelen blinked. "Okay… not useless."
They ran.
The forest twisted with motion.
Branches trembled even without wind. Roots writhed just beneath the soil. Something ancient and wrong pulsed through the trees, warping them ever so slightly—like the forest itself remembered pain and was bracing for it.
They passed broken totems.
Stone markers, cracked and half-swallowed by moss.
Each one bore faint symbols—Druidic, yes—but different from what the half-elf instinctively knew. More violent. More chaotic. Less… balanced.
"What are these?" she asked as they passed a fifth crumbling stone.
Kaelen glanced at it, face grim. "Old magic. This forest was tamed once, before the kingdoms even mapped it. Some Circle tried to bind it with war-druids and soul roots. But the forest doesn't forget."
"And now it's turning on us?"
"No," Kaelen said. "It's warning us."
They ducked beneath a fallen log and entered a shadowed glen. The mist here was thicker, the air damp with rot and magic. The Druid's skin prickled. Her mark burned.
Kaelen knelt and brushed her fingers across the dirt.
"Tracks."
She pointed.
The footprints were large, clawed. Wrong in proportion. A predator—but not natural.
"Wildling," Kaelen muttered.
The Druid frowned. "That's not a creature."
"It wasn't."
A snapping branch.
Both spun, weapons raised.
Nothing.
Then—a flicker of movement above.
They looked up.
A silhouette—long-limbed, with joints that bent wrong—clung to the bark of an ancient pine.
Its head tilted unnaturally.
Then dropped.
It landed in front of them with the grace of a spider.
No eyes.
Just slits and bone, and a maw that grinned too wide.
"Back," Kaelen hissed.
The Druid didn't wait.
She dropped to one knee and slammed her palm into the dirt.
"Sylva renath!"
Roots exploded upward, ensnaring the creature's legs.
It screamed—not in pain, but in hunger.
It began to twist its limbs unnaturally to escape.
Kaelen lunged, blades flashing.
She struck twice—once in the chest, once across the throat.
The creature stumbled, fell—
—and dissolved into mist.
Gone.
But not dead.
Kaelen cursed. "It's scouting."
The Druid staggered back, chest heaving. "It's not bound to this world. I felt it. It's echo-born. Half real, half memory."
Kaelen's eyes widened. "Then it's learning us."
They pressed on.
At the far edge of the glen, they found the trail split.
To the left: ruins overgrown with vines. A faint shimmer of protective wards.
To the right: deeper into the trees. Wild. Unmapped. Unsettled.
Kaelen looked to the Druid. "If the others are still alive, we'll find signs at the ruins. But I'm betting the source of all this corruption is down the wild path."
The Druid hesitated.
Her pendant glowed faintly—pulling toward the wild.
But her totem? It pointed toward the ruins.
She clenched her jaw.
"I'll go where you go," Kaelen said. "But choose fast."
A howl—closer now.
No longer alone.
A chorus.
The Wildlings were calling for each other.
And for her.
She took a deep breath.
Then stepped toward the vines.
"The ruins first," she said. "We find who we can. Then we end this."
Kaelen nodded once. "Then stay sharp, leafblood."
The Druid smiled faintly.
"I will."