Midday light cast long shadows across the bridge as they stepped from sun into shade. The old planks groaned faintly underfoot — the last sound of the world they knew before the silence of the Forsaken Realm swallowed everything else.
On the far side, they paused.
A narrow path stretched ahead — not carved into the land by blade or stone, but pressed down by time, by years of silent passage. Grass gave way to packed earth, brittle and grayish, traced with shallow grooves where wheels and boots had once passed. The trail curved slightly — and then kept going.
North. Only north.
A faint heat curled across Rasha's chest, beneath her ribs —the Fire Spirit's presence stirring. Not with warning. With recognition.
Talo scanned the horizon, brow drawn tight. "I don't see anything veering east," he said, voice low. "Nothing leading out. Just deeper in."
Rasha stood beside him, silent for a beat. Her eyes traced the line of the path, then the gnarled trees looming farther ahead — bark mottled, the leaves a shade too pale, as if dusted in ash.
"Maybe," she said, steady, "we'll find it once we're farther in. Trails don't always show themselves from the outside."
He looked at her, worry sharp in his gaze — but he nodded. "If it gets too deep, we turn back."
Rasha didn't answer. She just started walking.
They moved in silence at first, the path narrowing as the forest pressed closer. The trees twisted at odd angles, as if grown listening to whispers no one else could hear. Moss clung to stone in streaks of silver and soot. Beneath their boots, the ground crunched in dry patches and sank in others — as if some buried thing stirred just beneath the surface, dreaming.
The air was cooler — but not clean. It carried something old. Something unsettled. A scent like rain trapped in a sealed room.
Talo kept his staff in hand. "Feels different here," he muttered.
"Not just different," Rasha replied. "Altered."
A flicker of movement caught her eye — up ahead, just beyond a bend in the path.
She stopped, lifting one hand slowly.
There, half-shrouded by leaves, a creature crouched atop a boulder. Its shape was familiar — lean, long-legged, twitching with awareness.
But its eyes were wrong. They were red — not bright, not fierce, just… off. Watching.
"Is that—" Talo began.
"It looks like a sand hare," Rasha finished quietly. "But it's not the same animal. At least, not anymore."
The creature didn't bolt. It blinked slowly, deliberately — and vanished into the underbrush like smoke.
More followed.
Not close. Never close.
But always just far enough to see.
A pair of antlers gleaming through the leaves — the animal beneath cloaked in fur that shimmered like scorched iron. A long-bodied predator slinking across an exposed ledge — its tail too long, its movements too smooth. Their eyes mirrored something ancient and wrong, as if the land itself had rewritten them.
"There's magic in them," Talo said at last. "But it's not… natural."
"No," Rasha agreed. "It's like they were touched by something. Left out in the rain too long — and forgot what they were."
The woods darkened slowly, even as the sun still hung high behind them. Bird calls rang out — sharp, strange. Sometimes the brush rustled — but nothing came too close.
Not yet.
Talo exhaled through his nose, voice low. "Still think we'll find the path in here?"
Rasha stared ahead — where the trail kept going, where the trees thickened and closed like ribs around a heart that no longer beat.
As the sun dipped westward, they left the trail entirely.
No path guided them now — only instinct, direction, and quiet resolve.
Rasha led at first, angling east with measured steps, eyes scanning the trees. The ground was uneven, dappled in brittle grass and root-choked soil. But the deeper they went, the more the land opened — not fully, but enough to move.
"We've spent all this time training to survive this place," Rasha said. "If heading east makes more sense, then we don't need the trail. We know what to look out for. We know what to look for."
Talo followed close behind, staff loose in hand. "Agreed. No point shadowing a trail that doesn't lead where we need to go."
A soft rustle sounded off to their left. Both of them paused.
A few yards away, low in the brush, a beast grazed — four-legged, broad-shouldered, its coat thick and streaked in rust-colored patches. It looked up briefly. One eye glinted red. Then it bent back to feeding, tail flicking behind it.
"Another herbivore," Talo said quietly.
Rasha nodded. "They're all like that so far. Bigger than we'd see near the Fire Lands, sure — but not interested in us."
"No predators," Talo added. "Not that we've seen."
The silence between them stretched, deepening.
They moved on.
The undergrowth thickened again, forcing them to circle a cluster of vine-strangled trees. Ahead, stones jutted from the soil like broken ribs. Rasha placed a hand on one, steadying herself as they climbed the ridge.
At the top, she paused.
The terrain beyond dipped into a shallow basin. The air shifted — cooler, damp, faintly sweet, like moss after rain.
"This could be something," she murmured.
Talo moved up beside her. "Good line of sight. Covered on two sides. Not bad."
They descended in silence, every footstep sinking into the moss-covered soil.
A shape darted through the underbrush to their right — lean and fast. Just a glimpse. Long tail. Dark fur. A predator — but small. Hunting something even smaller.
"They hunt here," Talo said. "Just not us."
"For now," Rasha answered softly. "We're still part of the unknown here. Maybe that buys us time."
They found a hollow tucked between leaning stones and roots like the limbs of sleeping giants. Not safe — nowhere in this place would be — but sheltered.
Talo dropped his pack and rolled his shoulders. "We can set up here for the night."
Rasha nodded, her gaze still drifting. She felt it again — a presence, somewhere just beyond the trees.
Not malice. Not motion.
Watching.
She said nothing.
Not yet.
They set up camp just off the basin's edge — beneath overhanging branches where the light dimmed before its time. The air cooled, but still held weight — a silence that wasn't empty.
Talo knelt by the fire pit, coaxing a low flame to life. Its glow flickered across the brush, casting gold and shadow along Rasha's cheek.
He stood, brushing off his hands. "We'll take turns keeping watch. Just in case."
Rasha unrolled her blanket. "You first?"
He nodded. "Wake me when the moons start to dip."
She flopped down with a sigh. "Bossy."
He grinned faintly. "That's guard talk."
Rasha smirked. "I'll rest responsibly — with flair."
Talo chuckled, turning to his post at the edge of camp, eyes fixed on the dark.
The fire cracked softly. The night shifted. The forest held its breath.
Rasha closed her eyes.
And the dream came.
She stood in a space that wasn't fully forest, not fully sky — a place half-formed, half-remembered.
The weight from her earlier dreams lingered — but this time, it wasn't abstract.
She wasn't alone.
The Fire Spirit stood before her. Not a blaze. Not a whisper.
Whole.
Her form shimmered like heat above coals. Her face was clear. Watching.
"You've come far," she said — low and resonant, like thunder behind silk.
Rasha's eyes didn't waver. "You feel… clearer."
"I am," the spirit said. "You've carried me well. But things are changing."
A pulse of heat passed between them.
"I've been watching through you. Feeling what you feel," she continued. "Since we've been here… something's stirred. Not in you. In me."
"There are creatures here," she said, "twisted by this realm. And when I see them… I'm not just on alert."
She paused.
"I want to react. Aggressively. Before they get the chance."
Rasha's breath slowed. Her exhale fogged — though no cold touched her.
The Fire Spirit stepped closer.
"It's not rage. It's instinct. But it's new. This place… it alters things. Even old power. Even me."
Her gaze sharpened.
"My memory of this place is faint. But I recall — we waged war here, once."
She hesitated.
"Be mindful. Of what you let in. Of the changes that may occur… if we don't stay rooted."
Rasha's voice was steady. "Will you turn against me?"
"No. We are one now," the spirit said. "You will inevitably change as I do. And change doesn't always ask permission."
"There will be dark energies that we absorb before we leave this place. Expelling them won't be—"
The Fire Spirit vanished mid sentence.
Like smoke on wind.
"Rasha."
A voice.
Close.
Real.
"Rasha, wake up."