We left Thornwood at dawn. By mid-morning, we were deep in the forest, following paths that seemed to shift when I wasn’t looking.
Everything felt different now. Charged. Like the realm itself knew what had happened between us in the Pleasure Grove—knew that we’d stopped pretending, stopped holding back, stopped acting like we had forever when we both knew the countdown had already begun.
Kaelren had been quiet during those three days of planning, but I’d felt him through our bond—the constant drain of maintaining the Thornwood’s barriers, the weight of decisions that would send people to their deaths, the way his corruption pulsed whenever he looked at me. And underneath it all, something new: a fierce protectiveness that made my chest ache, knowing it came with an expiration date.
The note he’d slipped under my door last night had been typically brief:We leave at dawn. The convergence won’t wait.
But when I’d opened the door to leave, he’d been standing there in the hallway—waiting, like he couldn’t bear to let the night end without seeing me one more time. He’d kissed me against the doorframe, thorough and desperate, and I’d felt through the bond what he couldn’t say: I’m running out of time to memorize this.
Now, hours into our journey, the landscape had shifted from the living architecture of the Thornwood into something wilder, more primal. The trees here were ancient, their trunks so massive that the entire crew could have linked hands and still not encircled them. Their roots dove deep into earth that hummed with old magic, the kind that predated kingdoms and courts and carved marks. Mist clung to everything, turning the world soft at the edges.
“My feet hurt,” Bryx complained for the third time in an hour, always so dramatic. “Why couldn’t we take the bee highways? Kevin misses me.”
“The bee highways are watched,” Sarnyx replied without looking back. She’d been leading our group with the kind of rigid precision that suggested she was holding herself together through pure will. “The Hunt has eyes everywhere now.”
“Paranoid much?” Bryx muttered, but quietly. We’d all noticed how Sarnyx had been since the planning sessions—wound tighter than a spring, her hand never straying far from her weapon.
Vashael and Nimor walked together, their shoulders occasionally brushing in a way that would have been casual if not for how Nimor’s form solidified each time they touched. Something had shifted between them during our time at the Thornwood, something tender and unspoken that made my chest ache with recognition.
I understood that now—the desperate need to hold onto connection when the world was ending. The way touch became prayer.
“We’ll rest here,” Kaelren announced suddenly, his voice cutting through my wandering thoughts.
The clearing looked like someone had designed it specifically for rest. Morning glory vines formed natural canopies overhead, their deep purpleblooms releasing a faint glow. Thick moss cushioned every step. The air was heavy with sweetness—honey, rain-soaked soil, and unfamiliar blossoms.
But it was the lake that drew my attention, pulled to it like a magnet draws iron.
It stretched before us like captured sky, its surface so still it could have been glass. The water was impossibly clear, showing stones at the bottom that glowed faintly with their own light—some blue, some green, some with a pearl-like radiance. The edges were lined with cattails that chimed softly in a breeze I couldn’t feel, their sound like distant bells.
Something about it made my marks tingle, a sensation somewhere between warning and recognition. The marks on my arms seemed to pulse in rhythm with something beneath the water’s surface.
“Mirror Lake,” Nimor said, materializing beside me in that unsettling way he had. His shadow form was more solid today, but I could still see through him if I looked at the right angle. “They say it shows truth to those brave enough to look.”
“Or foolish enough,” Vashael added, but her attention was on Nimor, not the water. Her pollen-touched skin seemed to glow in response to his proximity, little sparkles dancing across her cheeks.
“Why do mystical lakes always have to show truth?” Peeble complained, landing on my shoulder with their familiar weight. “Why can’t they show something helpful, like tomorrow’s weather or where you dropped that thing you were looking for?”
The crew dispersed to set up camp—Bryx immediately challenging anyone who’d listen to a game of dice, his carved wooden set appearing from somewhere in his many pockets. Sarnyx began checking the perimeter with her usual paranoia, placing small ward stones at strategic points. Eltrien wandered toward a cluster of strange mushrooms, pulling out vials and muttering about “fascinating spore patterns.”
But I couldn’t look away from the lake. It pulled at something deep in my chest, a yearning I couldn’t name.
“Don’t go near it,” Kaelren said, suddenly at my shoulder. His hand found mine instinctively, fingers threading through mine with the ease of newhabit. Through our bond, I felt his unease.
“Why?” I asked, though part of me already knew the answer would be cryptic and unhelpful.
“The Mirror Lake isn’t just water. It’s a threshold. Sometimes things come through. Sometimes things get pulled in.”
I took a step toward it, fascinated, but his hand tightened around mine—gentle but firm.
“Elle. I’m serious. Stay away from it.”
The intensity in his voice made me look at him, really look. The corruption had spread another fraction up his jaw since morning, and his eyes held genuine fear—not for himself, but for me.
“Okay,” I said, squeezing his hand back. “You’re right. Sorry. It’s just… it’s beautiful.”
“Beautiful things are often the most dangerous in this realm,” he said, then added more quietly, his thumb brushing across my knuckles, “Present company excluded.”
Despite everything, I smiled. “Did you just make a joke?”
