Elira waited until the forest fell into its lull—neither day nor night, when even the whispers seemed to doze—and crept from her chamber with the journal tucked beneath her cloak.
The Hollow Court slumbered beneath moonlight.
The lanterns floated slower.
The trees leaned in as if listening.
She followed a narrow path toward the overgrown ruins Mareel had shown her days ago: a stone circle choked with ivy and carved in forgotten runes.
If anyone had answers, they would lie here—among the glyphs Caelum once studied.
She knelt beside one of the stones and placed the journal beside it.
By the dim glow of a glowing blossom she'd plucked, she opened the book to one of the later entries.
Her fingers trembled as she traced the curling script.
"The glyphs are not language alone.
They are command.
They bend the will of things not meant to be touched."
The stone before her bore one such glyph—a triangle nested within a spiral, half-worn by weather.
Elira frowned.
"Command?"
Carefully, she copied the symbol onto a piece of bark and whispered the word Caelum had scribbled beneath it:
"Thalren."
The ground beneath her shifted.
A sudden warmth rippled through the air, like a breath across her skin.
The vines on the stone twitched—just for a moment—then stilled again.
She blinked.
"Did that… work?"
Something moved in the shadows.
Elira spun around, heart pounding—but saw only mist.
And trees.
Then a voice—low, ancient, echoing with familiarity—spoke from the dark.
"You should not speak that word."
Caelum stepped from the shadows, his fur bristling, golden eyes blazing.
She stood slowly, guilt tightening her throat.
"I—I just wanted to understand.
I thought maybe the glyphs could help."
"They can," he said.
"But not the way you think."
He crossed the circle and picked up the bark she had written on.
The symbol shimmered faintly in his hand.
"This glyph is one of summoning.
It calls not creatures, but memory itself.
Echoes of those who are lost."
He looked at her sharply.
"Did the forest speak again?"
"No," she said.
"But the glyph… it moved.
The vines responded."
"They're always listening," he muttered.
She took a step closer.
"Caelum, what if there's a way to undo it? The curse.
The transformation.
What if the forest can be rewritten?"
He shook his head.
"You don't rewrite a wildfire.
You survive it."
"But maybe—"
"Elira."
His voice, though calm, stopped her cold.
"I've walked this path longer than you've been alive.
And every time someone tries to change the forest… the forest changes them."
They stared at each other.
And still, the glyph pulsed softly between them, like a heartbeat no one had heard in centuries.