By morning, the fog had thinned but the cold still clung to the earth like an old wound. Elara walked beside the stranger in silence, her cloak drawn tight, her bare feet numb from the forest floor. She hadn't asked his name yet. She didn't trust it.
He moved with quiet purpose — not like a soldier, but not like a wanderer either. There was too much stillness in him, like someone who had learned to wait in the dark and strike when the silence was thick enough to hold blood.
She glanced at him again. "What did she take from you?"
He didn't answer at first. His jaw tensed, and for a moment she thought he might pretend not to have heard her.
Then: "My brother."
Elara blinked. "She killed him?"
"No. Worse." He stopped walking and knelt to brush a few leaves aside. Beneath them, half-buried in the earth, was a circle of stones — old, carved with symbols Elara hadn't seen in years.
"She took his shadow," he said. "Stole the part of him that made him him. Left a shell behind. He walks and speaks, but his soul is… empty."
Elara knelt beside him, running her fingers over the stones. The markings glowed faintly under her touch, like embers waiting to reignite.
"This is old magic," she murmured. "Fae-born. She's using shadowcraft again."
He nodded. "That's how I found you. I tracked her spellwork here."
Elara stood slowly, eyes sweeping the trees. "She never does anything without a reason. If she left this behind, it means she wanted someone to find it."
"You think it's a trap?"
"I think everything she touches becomes one."
He stood too, brushing dirt off his hands. "Still want to come with me?"
She hesitated.
The smart thing — the safe thing — would be to turn back. Hide at the lake. Wait for another hundred moons. Hope that fate would eventually grow kind.
But safety had never freed her. And fate was a cruel, lazy god.
"Yes," she said. "But I need to go back first. There's something I have to take with me."
---
The lake was quiet when they returned, the water glassy and still. Elara moved to the far side, past the reeds, to a hollow tree whose bark was warped with age and spellcraft.
Inside it, wrapped in faded cloth and sealed with wax, was the only thing she'd ever managed to keep hidden from the sorceress.
She unwrapped it slowly — reverently.
A dagger, silver-forged, the hilt inlaid with swanbone and glass. It pulsed faintly in her hand, like a heartbeat.
"I thought you weren't a witch," the man said behind her.
"I'm not," she replied. "But I was once meant to be one."
He raised a brow. "You trained under her?"
Elara's lips tightened. "I trained with her."
For a moment, the trees seemed to lean in closer.
"I was her sister. In name, if not in blood. We studied under the same mentor. But where I saw power as a gift, she saw it as a throne. She made a deal with the dark fae — stole secrets she was never meant to know. When our mentor found out, he tried to strip her of her magic."
She turned the blade slowly in her hand, catching the moonlight.
"She killed him. And cursed me for standing in her way."
The man looked at her for a long moment. "You said people call you a ghost. A monster."
Elara met his gaze. "Because it's easier than saying I failed."
A pause.
"Then let's change the story," he said.
She blinked, unsure if it was a promise or a challenge.
Maybe both.
---
They traveled north, following trails that didn't exist on maps — places where the trees whispered in languages older than time, and the stars looked down with watchful silence.
At night, Elara told him the rules of the forest. "Don't step in a ring of mushrooms. Don't answer if something calls your name. And if the trees start singing, run."
By the third night, she asked for his name.
"Kael," he said.
"Just Kael?"
"It's the only part I still own," he replied.
Elara didn't push further.
That night, she dreamed of feathers falling like snow, of her sister's voice echoing through the branches. I see you, little swan. Still pretending you can fly.
She woke gasping, her fingers curled tight around the dagger.
The fire was low, and Kael sat across from her, sharpening his blade.
"Bad dream?" he asked without looking up.
"They're always bad," she said.
He nodded once. "We're getting close."
"How do you know?"
He turned the feather over in his palm — the one he'd stolen. It glowed now, pulsing faintly with dark light, as if drawn to something deeper ahead.
"She knows we're coming," Elara whispered.
Kael looked at her, his eyes hard.
"Then let her."