The trees were still too close.
Moonlight peeled in through the boughs like spilled milk on black silk, pale and sharp and far too thin to trust. Moss clung to their boots like it didn't want them leaving. Branches leaned inward, creaking soft, like they'd been waiting all this time just to listen.
No birds. No crickets. Just the air breathing. Slow. Watching.
Caylen's steps slowed as the bell sounded. Not loud. Hollow, distant. Then silence again, the kind that scratched.
He glanced down. The girl's fingers were tight around his coat. She wasn't trembling. Just locked up, like letting go would mean falling straight out of the world. The wind dragged past their ears in a hush that wasn't natural. Cold that didn't sting skin so much as whisper near the bones.
By the time they staggered up to the Gentle Giant Inn, the second moon had clawed its way over the tree line. The door creaked open before they touched it. Silent Killer filled the frame, shoulders wide and still as stone, his eyes shaded in the lantern's glow. That gaze ticked from Caylen to the girl, then to the weight under everyone's eyes. No words. Just a short nod, and he stepped aside.
Inside, the inn flickered with firelight and fatigue. A few heads turned, but no one said much. Not with that look on them. Not with the child like that.
The red-haired barmaid spotted them and moved fast, lifting her skirts without grace, hair already loosening from its pins. Her face froze when she saw the girl.
"By both moons," she muttered, hand to her mouth. "Is that Mella's girl?"
Caylen didn't lift his gaze. Just nodded once. Voice sanded down. "Alive. But something's stuck to her. Not just chill. Feels like she brought back part of whatever found her."
The girl behind the bar vanished without another word.
They lowered the child near the fire. She didn't react to the heat. Not a twitch. Dax collapsed into the nearest chair like his bones were protesting the whole journey. He scrubbed his face rough with both hands.
"Woods are wrong," he said into his palms. "Voices coming from all sides. None of them belonged to anything that should've had a mouth."
Ezreal stood with his back to the hearth, hands shaking off the cold, face too sharp for peace.
"Two of them mimicked her," he said. "Used her voice. Turned it into a lure. Cruel work. Tactical."
"It wasn't strategy," Caylen cut in. His tone was solid. Dull, maybe. Like someone trying not to feel it. "It was cruelty."
Verek hadn't spoken. He'd been watching the fire like it was whispering secrets. Finally, he said, low and strange, "They weren't stealing. They were... unmaking."
The door creaked again. Silent Killer stepped back in with a bottle that looked like it had stories of its own. He set it down hard. Sat. Said nothing.
Then: "On the house. You stirred something. Something that's been sleeping longer than most trees have rings. Forest remembers that kind of thing. Doesn't always forgive."
Ezreal tilted his head, eyes slitting. "This is the reason the disappearances started. Has to be."
The orc didn't answer quick. His stare stayed on the flame. When he finally did speak, his voice came thick.
"Lived here all my life. The woods were always strange. Bad luck, strange dreams, animals vanishing. But last month..."
He leaned closer.
"The stars went wrong. Sky was clear, then blank. Just one star left. Big. Red. Beating like a heart. Hung there a minute. Then dark again. Since then, things changed. Folks waking up in places they didn't fall asleep in. Memories with teeth. Children fading out of their own names."
Caylen held the pendant at his chest. It was more habit than prayer.
"Should we take this to the Council?"
Ezreal's voice cut across the room.
"They know."
He didn't raise his tone. Didn't need to. The certainty in it was heavier than shouting.
"They've known. Just waiting for it to burn out. Or burn us."
Then the door hit again. Fast. No knock.
Mella. Half-laced, hair wild, shoes dragging. She hit the floor next to the girl, pulled her close, and the sob that broke from her hit the room like a dropped dish. Shattered everything.
Nobody spoke. Even Dax dropped his head. Ezreal looked away.
It took a while before Verek moved.
"We sleep tonight," he said. "At first light, we head north."
He pulled the map from his coat. Flattened it against the table.
"King's Port is five days if the roads still exist. We'll need a guide. And gear. But before that..."
He tapped the edge of the letter.
"Torvald's seal. And this spiral. Same as the one stitched into the altar. If he's working with Ellenoir—willingly or not—then this isn't a local rot. This is war."
Dax's laugh was bitter.
"Pick your poison. One's a snake, the other's a storm."
Ezreal's voice was dry. "Either way, it bites."
Plates barely empty. Cups still warm. Another knock. This time, a local. Fisherman. Face pale, breath tight.
"You're the ones who went into the woods? Fought the ones that weren't... weren't people anymore?"
Dax didn't even get up. Just leaned back in the chair, arms crossed.
"Depends who's asking," he said. His smirk was thin. "And whether they're bringing trouble or stew."
The man swallowed. Held out something. A charm. Woven reeds, a bone in the center. Not decorative. Protective. Shaking in his hand.
"We saw one of these nailed to our door this morning," he said. "None of us put it there. My wife's been speaking names in her sleep. Names we don't know."
Ezreal stood slower this time.
"What names?"
The fisherman shook his head.
"Can't remember. She forgets them when she wakes. Cries sometimes, like she's mourning. But we never lost anyone. Not till now."
Verek took the charm gently. Studied it. His jaw tensed.
"It's a marker," he said. "An invitation. Or a curse. Hard to tell which."
The barmaid reappeared. Nodded toward the back room.
"She's settled. Breathing normal. But she won't speak. Just keeps humming."
Caylen rose, slow, every movement tired. He passed Verek on the way to the door.
"Humming's better than screaming. For now."
Verek said nothing. His thumb ran over the charm's edge. Something about it itched wrong.
He looked at the spiral again. The one scrawled on the parchment. The one that didn't belong to any faith still allowed.
His voice, when it came, was quiet.
"We didn't just walk into someone else's nightmare. We stepped into the start of something worse."
The fire cracked. The girl hummed behind the wall. And the red star, unseen, pulsed once more in the sky.