The Elderwood swallowed her whole.
As Elira Vane stepped past the first line of trees, the storm outside seemed to dull.
The rain still fell, but softer now, like whispers across leaves.
The towering blackwood trees rose around her in solemn silence, their trunks wide enough to hide whole houses, their branches twisting so high that they disappeared into a gray-green mist.
It was like walking into the lungs of a sleeping god.
She paused at the base of a massive root, adjusting her satchel and glancing back.
The village was gone—hidden by a wall of fog that hadn't been there a moment ago.
Elira swallowed hard.
"Only forward," she muttered, echoing her mother's favorite phrase. It sounded braver when her mother said it.
She pressed deeper into the wood, careful to mark her path by carving a small "V" into tree bark every few dozen paces.
Her boots sank into moss and damp leaves, and the silence around her wasn't empty—it was watching.
Twigs cracked where no foot had fallen.
Faint laughter echoed now and then, distant and wrong.
The deeper she went, the stranger the world became.
Golden flowers glowed faintly in the gloom, pulsing with a heartbeat rhythm.
Birds with crystalline feathers watched her from twisted branches.
A fox with six eyes darted across her path and vanished before she could blink.
Magic lived here—wild, old, and untamed And somewhere ahead, the Beast did too.
"Elira…" She froze.
The voice drifted through the trees, soft as silk and sharp as ice.
It wasn't her father's voice. It wasn't human at all.
"Elira Vane."
This time, the voice came from her left.
She spun toward it, heart pounding, dagger half-drawn from its sheath.
"Who's there?"
Silence.
Then—footsteps.
Heavy.
Steady.
Coming closer.
Her breath caught as a shadow broke from the trees—massive, taller than any man, walking upright on clawed feet.
A thick mane of dark fur, like smoke, framed a monstrous face. Horns curled from its brow like broken antlers. And its eyes—burning orange like molten gold—fixed on her.
The Beast of Nithara stood just beyond the mist.
"You've crossed into my realm," it said, voice rumbling like thunder in a cave.
Elira took a single step back, her grip tightening on the dagger.
"I came to ask for your help."
A pause. Then, the creature tilted its head.
"Help comes with a price."