We moved through the trees in a thick, pervasive silence. I stayed tucked close to Floryn’s radiant wake, my eyes darting restlessly across the undergrowth. Every shadow seemed to have grown teeth; every snap of a twig made the breath hitch in my throat. Nothing in this forest felt natural anymore—not after seeing the impossible.
My mind was a storm of jagged pieces that refused to fit together.
Mt. Hayp. The Seal. Marcos.
The names looped in my head like a funeral dirge, haunting and persistent. I swallowed against the dryness in my throat.
“Why me?” I finally asked. My voice was a fragile thread, thinner and more uncertain than I had intended.
Floryn didn't answer immediately. That hollow space of silence felt heavier, more pregnant with meaning, than any explanation she could ha
