Chapter 12 – The Forgotten Shrine
1042 Words
The forest had grown quieter with each mile. No birds sang. Even the wind seemed to hesitate among the ancient pines. Elias rode beneath their shadow, the rhythm of the horse’s hooves echoing like a heartbeat through the damp earth.
He had followed the map left behind by the bard—ink fading, edges torn—until it led him to a ravine veiled in mist. At its heart stood something not quite swallowed by time: a shrine of stone and ivy. Half-collapsed, yet defiant against decay.
Elias dismounted, boots sinking into moss. The air here was colder, thinner, laced with something older than faith.
Two names were carved into the central archway, their letters worn but legible beneath his fingertips:
Mira
Darius
The second name struck him like a blade. Darius—the lost hunter, the one she had loved.
He knelt before the shrine, tracing the carvings. The stone hummed faintly beneath his touch, as if remembering.
“You came here once,” Elias murmured. “You and he. Before the curse.”
The silence that followed was almost a reply.
He found remnants of offerings—wilted flowers, melted wax, feathers bleached pale. A bowl of rainwater sat untouched at the base of the altar, reflecting the broken sky. He gazed into it, and for a fleeting instant, saw not his own reflection but that of a woman’s face—black hair tangled by the wind, eyes full of sorrow.
“Mira,” he whispered.
The air shivered.
From the treeline, a whisper of movement. Elias turned, dagger drawn. But what emerged was no threat—only a small, spectral light hovering above the ground. It drifted toward him, pulsing softly, leading him deeper into the ruins.
He followed.
Beyond the main arch stood a pair of stone figures—one of a woman, her hands clasped in prayer, and the other of a man, reaching toward her. Time had eroded their features, but the emotion lingered in every curve: devotion, distance, loss.
Between them grew a single white flower, impossibly alive.
Elias knelt again, studying it. “A bloom among the dead,” he said softly.
“Because love never dies,” a voice murmured behind him.
He froze. Slowly, he turned.
She stood at the edge of the shrine, barefoot upon the moss, her long hair falling like night itself. Mira.
The witch’s eyes were no longer the frozen void he remembered from the clearing. They shimmered now with light and pain in equal measure.
“You found it,” she said.
Elias swallowed hard. “This place… it was yours.”
“Ours,” she corrected. Her gaze drifted to the carvings. “He carved those names before he left. Before the mountains took him. I thought the shrine would keep him safe.”
She moved toward the altar, her fingers brushing the ancient stone as if greeting an old wound.
“When he didn’t return, I came back here. I begged the gods, the spirits, the stars. I offered my heart, my gift, my years. They gave me silence.”
Her voice trembled. “So I created my own answer.”
Elias felt the cold creep through him. “The curse.”
She nodded. “My grief became a storm. I could heal no longer without taking something in return. Every wound I mended stole a heartbeat from me. Every soul I saved left me emptier.”
The spectral light hovered between them, flickering gently like a heartbeat.
“Darius’s spirit?” Elias asked.
Mira smiled sadly. “What’s left of him. He lingers here, bound by my sorrow.”
She reached toward the light, but it dimmed at her touch, retreating like a frightened bird.
“He can’t forgive me,” she whispered.
Elias stepped closer. “Perhaps forgiveness isn’t what he wants.”
She looked up at him, eyes glistening. “Then what does he want?”
“Release.”
The word lingered between them, fragile and heavy.
Elias drew the silver dagger—the same one that had saved her once, that had nearly cost him his life. “There’s power here,” he said. “Enough to end it. The curse. The binding.”
Mira’s gaze fell to the blade, then to him. “And what will it cost you this time?”
He hesitated. The shrine’s chill pressed into his skin, seeping into his bones. “Maybe what it always costs,” he said softly. “A piece of myself.”
Mira shook her head. “No more sacrifices. Not for me.”
She turned away, but Elias caught her hand, holding it gently. Her pulse was faint, her skin cold.
“You’ve carried this alone for too long,” he said. “Let me share it.”
The shrine seemed to respond. Wind swept through the clearing, stirring the ivy, and the spectral light brightened, spinning faster, circling them both.
Mira’s tears fell like rain. “Darius,” she whispered. “Forgive me. Let me go.”
The ground trembled. The light flared once, blinding white, and then split into a thousand drifting sparks that rose into the night like stars being born anew.
When the silence returned, only the two of them remained—Elias on his knees, Mira beside him, trembling.
She exhaled slowly, her breath a cloud in the cold air. “It’s done.”
He looked up at her. “You’re free?”
She nodded faintly. “Free of him. But not of the memory.”
Elias smiled, weary and sincere. “Then maybe it’s time you remembered who you were before all this.”
Her gaze softened. “And who will remind you of who you are?”
The question lingered like a touch neither dared to finish.
Above them, the stars shone brighter through the clouds, as though the heavens themselves had sighed in relief.
At the base of the shrine, the white flower glowed faintly, petals opening wide to the night.
Mira knelt and touched it gently. “He planted this for me,” she said. “Now it blooms for us.”
Elias reached for her hand, their fingers brushing in the dark.
The forest no longer felt haunted.
Only alive.
- Writer
