I wake up somewhere that is not the forest.
The first thing I notice is the cold.
Stone beneath my back. Smooth. Ancient. The kind that holds memory the way skin holds scars. My fingers twitch against it, and the sound echoes—sharp, hollow—telling me I’m underground.
My breath comes shallow.
I sit up too fast and the world tilts, silver flashing at the edges of my vision. My body feels… wrong. Not injured. Not weak.
Too aware.
Every nerve humming, every sense tuned too tightly, like I’ve been strung into something precise and dangerous.
Light flickers across the ceiling above me—not firelight, not moonlight, but something embedded into the stone itself. Veins of pale glow trace symbols I don’t recognize, pulsing slowly, rhythmically.
Like a heartbeat.
I push myself upright.
That’
