Long-press a paragraph to send danmaku
Cole didn't sleep.
He sat with his back against an oak, watching Ivy across the dead fire. She'd rolled herself in her cloak an hour ago, but her eyes were still open. Staring up through the branches. Not blinking much.
The laughter in the woods had stopped around midnight. Nothing had come for them. That somehow made it worse.
When the sky turned gray, Ivy sat up. Didn't stretch. Didn't yawn. Just stood and started packing her bedroll.
"We moving?" Cole asked.
"You want to stay here?"
Fair point.
They ate cold bread and harder cheese while they walked. Ivy led. She'd stop every few minutes, crouch, put her hand flat on the ground. Sometimes she'd tilt her head like she was listening to something Cole couldn't hear. Then she'd stand and change direction.
Cole kept his mouth shut for the first hour. By the second, he couldn't anymore.
"You seeing tracks?"
Ivy didn't look back. "Not tracks."
"Then what?"
"Echoes."
That told him nothing. "Ivy."
She stopped. Turned around. Her face was pale, eyes ringed dark. "You want me to explain it? Fine. Every time something dies, it leaves a mark. Most people can't see it. I can. The thing we're hunting? It's been all over these woods. But it's not hunting random. It's not feeding in a circle. It's moving west. Every village, every dead end, it's dragging us deeper."
Cole stared at her. "Dragging us."
"Yeah."
"You think it knows we're following."
"I think it wants us to follow."
Cole's jaw tightened. "That's—"
"What? Paranoid?" Ivy stepped closer. "You grew bone wings out of a shield spell yesterday, Cole. Your death prints are all over the thing you killed. You want to tell me I'm the one losing my grip?"
He didn't have an answer for that.
Ivy turned and kept walking.
By midday they'd left the villages behind entirely. The trees here were older. Thicker. The underbrush had teeth—thorns as long as Cole's thumb, hooked and black. The air smelled like iron and wet rot.
Ivy stopped at the base of a lightning-split pine. She knelt, pressed both palms into the dirt.
Cole waited.
She stayed down longer this time. When she finally stood, her hands were shaking.
"Ivy?"
"It killed here. Three times. Different days." Her voice was flat. "Deer. Maybe. Hard to tell when there's nothing left."
"Nothing left?"
"Not even bones."
Cole felt his stomach twist. "What does that?"
Ivy wiped her hands on her pants. Didn't get the dirt off. "Something that doesn't eat to live. It eats to take."
"Take what?"
"Everything. Memory. Shape. Name." She looked at him. "You."
Cole's hand drifted to the knife on his belt. Not that it'd do much good. "You think that's what it wants? Me?"
"I think your mentor's death wasn't an accident," Ivy said. "I think whatever killed him is in these woods. And I think it already marked you."
Cole opened his mouth. Closed it. His throat felt tight.
Ivy started walking again.
The sun was falling when they reached the edge. Not the edge of the woods—the edge of something else. The trees just stopped. No gradual thinning. One step, dense forest. Next step, open ground.
And in the middle of that open ground, a temple.
It was gutted. Walls still standing, but the roof was gone. Vines crawled up the stone, black and thick as a man's wrist. The air around it felt wrong. Too still. Like the wind didn't want to get close.
Ivy stopped at the tree line. "That's new."
"New?"
"Wasn't on the guild's maps. Wasn't in any of Warren's briefings." She glanced at Cole. "You ever see this place before?"
"No."
But even as he said it, something in his chest pulled tight. Like a hook sinking in.
They crossed the clearing slowly. The grass was dead. Not brown—gray. Like ash. It crunched under Cole's boots.
The temple's door was still intact. Heavy oak, banded with iron. And carved into the wood, dead center, was a seal.
Cole stopped breathing.
Ivy saw his face. "What?"
He couldn't answer. Couldn't look away.
The seal was a circle split into thirds. Three lines curving inward, meeting at a hollow center. Around the edge, glyphs Cole hadn't seen in two years.
Not since his mentor's body was found.
"Cole." Ivy's voice was sharp now. "What is that?"
His mouth was dry. "It's a binding seal. Old guild work. Pre-charter."
"What's it binding?"
"I don't know."
"Bullshit."
Cole turned on her. "I don't know. But my mentor used this seal. He was the only one left who knew how. The guild said he died in a casting accident. But when they found him—" He stopped. Swallowed. "They said there was nothing left but the marks on the floor. Same marks as this."
Ivy stared at the door. Then at Cole. "So what? He came here? He opened this?"
"He wouldn't. This kind of seal, you don't break it unless you want whatever's inside to get out."
"Then why is it here?"
Cole didn't answer. Because he didn't have one.
Ivy stepped closer to the door. Reached out.
"Don't—"
She touched the seal.
Nothing happened.
She looked back at Cole. "It's cold."
"Ivy, get away from it."
"It's just a door."
"It's not just a—"
The seal flared.
Not light. The opposite. The glyphs went black, so black they seemed to pull the color out of the air around them. And from inside the temple, something breathed.
Long. Slow. Wet.
Ivy jerked her hand back. Stumbled into Cole. He caught her by the shoulders, dragged her back three steps.
The breathing stopped.
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
Then Ivy's voice, barely a whisper. "Cole."
"What?"
"Look at the ground."
He looked.
Footprints. Death prints. Glowing faint in the failing light. Leading from the tree line to the door.
And they were Cole's.
Not fresh. Old. Weeks old, maybe. But unmistakable.
"You've been here before," Ivy said.
Cole shook his head. "I haven't. I swear I haven't."
"Then who the hell has?"
Before Cole could answer, the door opened.
Not all the way. Just a crack. Just enough to let the smell out.
Blood. Ash. Something sweet underneath, like fruit gone black.
And from the dark inside, a voice.
Cole's voice.
"Come in," it said. "You're late."