(Malikye’s POV
The forest began to change again not long after the second trial, but this time it was different. The shift wasn’t unsettling in the same sharp, uneasy way as before—it was quieter, deeper, almost reverent. The trees thinned gradually, their towering trunks giving way to open space, and the mist that had clung to the ground slowly dissolved into the air like something released from its purpose. The further we walked, the more the Veilwood seemed to… part for us.
Or maybe it was parting for me.
I noticed it in the way the roots no longer twisted aggressively across the path, in how the branches no longer snagged at my clothes or blocked the light. The forest felt less like an obstacle now and more like a passage.
Like it had decided something.
I walked in silence, my tho
