“The Bone Orchard,” he said after a pause. “Or so the maps call it.”
Alaric turned. “That does not give me any comfort.”
Gideon didn’t smile. “It’s not meant to be. Locals claim that a great battle took place here during the Forgotten Wars. Thousands fell, but no one buried them. The war moved on, and they left the dead behind.”
He studied the trees.
“They say the roots drank deep. Took the flesh, the blood, the memory. That’s why the trees grow so pale. Like they’re full of ghosts.”
Jasira shivered. “That’s a bit morbid.”
“That’s Wildervale,” I muttered.
The name fits. There was something wrong with this place. Not in the way of traps or predators, but in how everything still was, like the forest had gone hollow. Waiting for something to return.
Wyn said nothing. She slid between the bleached trunks, her hair swaying gently as she walked ahead of the group. I only wished I could read her expression.
I’d been watching her more closely since the light.
Something was changing in her. Untouchable almost. Like the gods had taken notice, and now she belonged to them more than to us.
Alaric veered off to scout the path ahead with Bran. Gideon stayed near Jasira. I lingered a few paces behind Wyn, keeping my hand on my blade even though nothing stirred.
She dropped to her knees suddenly, fingers brushing the moss near the base of one of the taller trees.
“What is it?” I asked, stepping closer.
A line creased her brow as she exhumeda glint of metal from the moss. It wasn’t lost debris or a forgotten trinket; instead, it was a pendant. Elegant in its simplicity, shaped like a teardrop of blackened silver, cool and ancient. The chain had long since worn thin, but the pendant itself gleamed faintly despite the misty light.
On its surface, spun in lines so delicate they seemed to shimmer, was a wildflower whose petals curled upward like flames.
She turned it over in her palm. “It’s warm,” she whispered, raising her eyebrows.
I stepped forward, drawn inexplicably toward it. Like I’d seen it before in a dream I hadn’t known was mine.
She startled when I reached for it and let it fall into the moss. I crouched and picked it up. The warmth wasn’t sunlight—it was deeper. Like breath caught in metal. Like something old, and grieving, and waiting.
A sudden surge of adrenaline made the blood rush through my veins.
Cireth. A name rose in my thoughts like a whisper, unbidden.
I didn’t know how or why, but this piece of the past had been waiting for me.
Wyn stepped back, her voice shaky. “It sees us.”
I looked at the pendant in my palm, the faint warmth pulsing through the metal like a second heartbeat.
“No,” I said softly. “It remembers us.”
Her eyes blinked open in a flash of surprise.
I couldn’t explain it, but I sensed it. The pendant wasn’t just reacting to her. It had been waiting for me, too, sent here like a thread in a story we hadn’t told. The thread only made sense when the two pieces came together.
When flame met earth. When memory found purpose.
Her eyes flickered, but she said nothing more. She just watched my hand, where the pendant rested.
And though I was unsure why, I already knew its intended use.
