Ariane:
The entrance of the bog was as silent as death.
Too silent.
It was not the kind of hush that comes with comfort, but the type that slinks in before you scream in terror. It was the quiet that curls around your ankles like smoke and makes your skin feel too tight for your body.
We stood at its threshold—Seris, Bruin, Rook, and Ridge—watching the mist curl between twisted trees like fingers through hair. Beyond us, the fen stretched vast and endless, a drowned world of shadow and rot.
No birds. No wind. No light except the watery gray spilling through a torn sky.
“Last chance to turn back,” Ridge muttered, adjusting the strap on his weapons.
Rook snorted. “Back to what? We can’t leave them there. I’ll take whatever’s in there over knowing we left them to die.”
Bruin didn’t s
