“I must prepare.”
Leonidas’s brow furrowed. “My lady—”
I narrowed my eyes. “It is tradition.”
He said nothing further, only bowed his head.
I stepped away from them, into a small clearing where the wards shimmered like heat haze. The forest loomed beyond—black, twisted trees, their skeletal branches reaching for me like supplicants or predators. The air grew colder with every step, though the sun had not fully vanished.
I knelt.
The marble floors of the Temple were polished and clean; this earth was damp, gritty, full of roots that pressed into my knees. I welcomed the discomfort. My life had been gilded, sheltered by divine fire. But my oath was carved in blood and ash, not silk and marble.
Closing my eyes, I pressed the sigil to my chest and inhaled.
The Phoenix stirred.
It was not a voice, not exactly. More like a second heartbeat, a roar muffled in my bones. Heat bloomed in my lungs, spread through my veins. I opened myself to it, to the fire that was both gift and curse.
Flames licked along my arms, invisible to mortal eyes but burning me all the same. My hair lifted, shimmering faintly with embers no wind could stir. I whispered the old words, not for the Paladins, not for the Sun God, but for myself.
Rise. Burn. Fall. Rise again.
The mantra steadied me. Each word a reminder: I had died once, and been reborn in fire. The world had ended for me, and begun again. I could endure whatever waited in the shadows.
When I opened my eyes, I felt steady. Heavy with fire. My fear was still there, coiled deep, but it was tempered now—hardenedinto resolve.
I rose, brushing soil from my knees.
The Paladins bowed their heads as I returned to them, though none dared ask what I had done. They felt it in the air, in the faint ripple of heat that clung to me now, in the way their torches flared brighter as I passed.
“Forward,” I commanded.
And together, we crossed into the Forest of Night’s Bane.
~
The air changed the moment we stepped beneath the trees.
It was not simply darker, though the light of the sun faltered as if it had struck an invisible barrier. No, the very atmosphere thickened, pressed down on my lungs, seeped into my skin with clammy insistence. The torch flames sputtered, reluctant to burn. Even the glow I summoned in my palm dimmed, its brilliance eaten at the edges as though the shadows themselves were starving.
A cold wind whistled through the branches.
We moved deeper, our boots sinking into soft soil slick with decay. Roots twisted across the path like the bones of some long-buried giant. Every tree stood warped, blackened bark curving inward, their branches arching above us to knit an oppressive canopy. I could hear the Paladins’ armor creak as they adjusted their stance, their breaths coming quicker than discipline should have allowed.
“Hold steady,” Leonidas murmured, his voice low, though even he sounded strained. “Remember your training.”
Training. I almost smiled, bitterly. Nothing in their drills could prepare them for this place. The forest was not simply hostile; it was alive, aware, responding to our intrusion with silent, malignant intent.
I tightened my grip on my staff, and the golden light at itshead flared, illuminating the twisted trunks nearest us. For a heartbeat, the shadows retreated. Yet even as they fled, I felt them coil tighter just beyond reach, pressing in with patient hunger.
The deeper we walked, the louder the silence grew. Not a single birdcall. Not the rustle of nocturnal beasts. Only the sound of our breaths and the crunch of roots underfoot.
And beneath it all—a pulse.
I felt it through the soles of my boots, through the marrow of my bones. A rhythm, faint yet insistent, like the heartbeat of the forest itself. Except it was not the forest.
It was him.
