The echoes of the shattered altar still rang in the air as the group trudged deeper into the Mire. The red light that had once guided them now flickered weakly, casting ghostly shadows across the warped trees.
Rose walked ahead, silent. Her hands were still crackling faintly with leftover stormlight, and the sigil on her palm pulsed with something new—something awake.
Lira floated beside her. "You should not have destroyed the altar."
Rose shot her a glance. "You wanted us to find Mortain's trail. We did. That thing was guarding it."
Lys walked behind them, her tone sharper. "Yes, but now he knows you've found it. You've provoked him."
"Good," Basil muttered. "Let him come out and face us."
"He won't," Lira said. "Not yet. He's a god of rot, not war. He weakens from beneath. Like the Mire."
Rose came to a stop. "Then we burn the roots before he spreads."
They reached a strange rise in the ground—an unnatural mound covered in wet moss and tangled thorns. Beneath it, something glowed faintly blue.
Rose knelt and brushed the vines aside.
It was a skeleton, curled in a fetal position, wrapped in moon-cloth. Still clutching a journal of black leather, sealed with a moon sigil.
Nimbus hovered closer. "That's Seer-made."
Rose opened the book slowly. The pages crackled, but the ink was still legible. Her eyes scanned the faded writing, her breath catching as the entries unfurled:
> "Mortain came to us cloaked in grief. He asked for sanctuary. We gave it freely. He wept like a mortal. We believed him."
> "The stormwitch… she bears the sigil again. It sings in our dreams."
> "If she finds this, she must understand: the gods do not die. They change shape. And love is the only blade that wounds them."
Rose blinked, rereading that last line. Her fingers trembled.
Basil stepped closer. "What is it?"
She handed him the journal. "They knew about me. Before me. Mortain… he's been playing this game for longer than we thought."
Lira and Lys leaned in together, eerily still.
"He wept," Lira whispered.
"He lied," Lys added.
Rose stood, eyes alight with fury and confusion. "What does it mean—'love is the only blade'? Is that how he fell before?"
"Maybe it's how he rises again," Basil said darkly.
Nimbus cleared his throat. "So just to summarize—we're in a haunted swamp, being stalked by a rot god who manipulates people with their deepest regrets, and the key to stopping him is… love?"
Rose smirked, though her expression didn't quite reach her eyes. "Sounds ridiculous when you say it."
"It is ridiculous," Nimbus muttered. "But so is our entire life now."
She tucked the journal into her satchel and looked toward the shifting trail ahead.
"We're leaving the Mire."
"And going where?" Basil asked.
Rose turned to face him, the glow of the sigil flaring again. "To the place where Mortain first wept. Wherever that is… it's where this ends."
And in the darkened roots beneath them, something ancient stirred.