Chapter 3- Crossing the Boundary
641 Words
The lantern flame shuddered like it, too, had grown afraid.
Somewhere deep in the woods—
something answered.
Not a voice.
Not words.
But a sound.
Low and ancient, like wood groaning beneath winter ice, like roots cracking and shifting deep beneath the earth where no light would ever reach.
Elen stood frozen.
Kael lay in her arms, too still again, his face pale against the dark of her cloak.
As though he had never spoken at all.
As though she had imagined it.
But she knew.
She knew she hadn't.
Her pulse thundered in her ears.
"Kael?"
Her voice came out small.
Too human for a place like this.
No answer came.
Only the whisper of wind through the trees.
Watching.
Waiting.
The forest seemed to lean closer around her, branches bending overhead until the sky disappeared completely. The path beneath her feet narrowed, swallowed by roots and shadow.
Elen glanced over her shoulder.
The way back was already harder to see.
She tightened her grip on the lantern.
Fear clawed at her throat, sharp and sudden.
For one wild moment, she wanted to run.
Turn around.
Go home.
Pretend none of this had happened.
Pretend she had never chosen to come here.
Pretend the fever could still be cured with herbs and prayers and the stubborn hope she still clung to.
But ahead of her was a forest that at least listened.
That was enough.
It had to be.
She forced herself forward.
One step.
Then another.
The deeper she walked, the stranger the woods became.
The rain had stopped, but water still clung to everything.
Unnaturally.
Leaves dripped softly overhead. Moss swallowed stone and root alike, thick, dark, and too soft beneath her boots.
The air smelled of wet earth and something sweeter underneath.
Flowers.
Almost like lilacs.
But there were no flowers.
Only trees.
Tall.
Ancient.
Wrong.
Once, she passed a cluster of white bones half-buried beneath the roots of an old oak.
Too small for deer.
Too large for foxes.
She did not stop to look closer.
The forest noticed hesitation.
She was sure of it.
She could feel it.
And she would not let it taste hers.
Kael shifted suddenly in her arms.
A sharp breath.
Then a whisper against her throat.
"Don't let it see me."
Elen nearly dropped the lantern.
Her breath caught hard in her chest, her spine stiffening at his small plea.
"Kael?"
His eyes stayed closed.
His body still burned with fever, his skin too warm, his breathing uneven.
But his fingers gripped weakly at her soaked cloak.
"Please," he whispered.
This time, it was his voice.
Small.
Weak.
Frightened.
Her son.
Relief hit so hard it hurt.
She dropped to her knees right there in the mud, clutching him tighter, hope rising painfully in her chest.
"I'm here," she whispered. "I'm here. I've got you."
His lips trembled.
"The… the river…"
Elen stilled.
"What about the river?"
His brow tightened like he was trying to hold onto something slippery and disappearing.
"There was someone there."
Cold spread through her chest.
"Someone? Are you sure?"
He nodded weakly.
"In the water."
The lantern light shook in her hand.
Kael's voice dropped softer.
Weaker.
"I thought it was you."
Elen could not breathe.
"It smiled at me."
The woods around them went still.
Utterly still.
Kael's fingers loosened.
His voice barely remained.
"He said you would come."
A pause.
A breath.
"They would have you."
Silence.
Heavy.
Absolute.
Elen rose slowly, every part of her body trembling now.
Not from cold.
From knowing.
This had started long before the fever.
Long before the sleepless nights and whispered prayers and desperate hope.
The forest had reached for him first.
To get to her.
Quietly.
Patiently.
Like it always did.
And now—
it was waiting for her to ask for him back.
- Writer
