The Gloamspire rose before them like the rotted spine of a forgotten god.
Kaelen stood at the forest's edge, staring into a tangle of trees so gnarled and tightly woven they looked fused, bark to bark. The canopy above blocked most of the sun, turning the sky into a pale smear of dying gray. Every branch dripped with moss the color of old blood, and vines as thick as ropes coiled like serpents through the trunks.
"This isn't a forest," Aelric muttered behind him. "It's a tomb with roots."
Seris stepped past them, already tracing a path with her gloved fingers. "The Gloamspire was once a sanctuary for the elder druids—before the Hollow King twisted it. Now it's more curse than wood. The spirits here are trapped in an endless dusk."
Kaelen tightened his cloak and stepped into the gloom.
The moment he passed the treeline, sound changed.
It didn't vanish—but it warped. Footsteps no longer echoed as they should. The wind carried voices that didn't belong. Whispers too soft to hear fully and too loud to ignore. The forest groaned, not from wind, but from memory. Every branch seemed to watch.
They pressed deeper.
The path—if it could be called that—was barely a goat's trail, hemmed in by deadfall and vines slick with mold. Creatures moved in the shadows, always just out of sight. Once, Kaelen turned too quickly and saw something vanish between trees: a tall, thin figure draped in bark and rags, its eyes like burning keys.
It didn't come closer.
It didn't need to.
By the second day, they were soaked in sweat and grime. Aelric had taken to muttering oaths in six different languages. Seris rarely spoke, but her hand never left the hilt of her staff-blade.
Kaelen bore the Ember's weight like an anchor. Since absorbing the second Vessel, it had grown warmer—more insistent. Sometimes it whispered names he didn't recognize. Sometimes it showed him faces. Once, it showed him himself, older, his eyes gone white with power.
They made camp beneath a low stone overhang carved with symbols from a language none of them knew.
That night, as Aelric snored softly and Seris kept watch, Kaelen dreamt.
He stood in the same forest—but it was clean, whole. The trees pulsed with golden veins, and the air hummed with life. At the center of the glade stood a figure cloaked in green flame.
A woman, tall and fierce-eyed.
"You walk the edge," she said without turning. "Of what you were and what you might become."
Kaelen stepped forward. "Who are you?"
"The Gloamwarden," she replied. "Once, I tended this place. Now, I guard its last breath."
She turned, revealing a half-rotted face hidden beneath light.
"Do not fail, Ember-bearer. Or this forest dies forever."
Kaelen reached out—
And woke choking on ash.
The fire had gone out.
Aelric was gone.
He bolted upright, sword out.
Seris spun toward him from the edge of the campsite, eyes wide. "He just vanished. No sound. No trail."
Kaelen scanned the dark. "He wouldn't have left willingly."
Seris nodded grimly. "Something took him."
Without another word, they followed the faint remnants of crushed moss and snapped twigs. The Gloamspire closed around them like a coffin, darker now, thicker. Trees leaned in as if eavesdropping. Whispers followed every step.
After an hour, they found blood.
Not much—but enough. A smear on bark. A spatter on roots.
Then they heard laughter.
It echoed strangely—childlike and cruel, bouncing between trunks like thrown stones.
Kaelen gritted his teeth. "Spirits?"
"No," Seris said. "Worse. Gloamborn."
The creature appeared moments later.
It crawled along the trees like a spider—too thin, too long. Its limbs bent the wrong way. Its face wore Aelric's grin—but its eyes were pitch-black voids.
"You're late," it purred in a mockery of Aelric's voice.
Kaelen charged.
The creature twisted away, shrieking with delight. It moved impossibly fast, vanishing into the trees. From the dark, dozens of eyes blinked open—clones, echoes, illusions.
Kaelen shouted. "Aelric!"
A single voice answered from above: "Little help!"
They looked up.
Aelric was suspended thirty feet off the ground, cocooned in vines that writhed like worms. One arm was free, clutching a dagger. "Took you long enough!"
Seris shot a bolt of magic from her staff. It struck the vine net, searing through. Kaelen leapt, catching the edge of a fallen root and scaling up to cut Aelric loose.
The creature shrieked again and lunged—
But Kaelen drew the Ember.
He held it aloft, letting its flame erupt in gold and scarlet light.
The forest recoiled. The creature screamed in agony, its fake grin melting off as it fled.
Aelric dropped to the ground, groaning.
"Missed you too," he coughed.
They didn't speak much the rest of the day.
That night, Kaelen sat by the fire, staring into the flame of the Ember in his palm.
It flickered with faces again.
The Gloamwarden.
Aenya.
The Hollow King.
And now, another—this time a child with fire in her eyes and a sword twice her size.
Kaelen didn't understand. Not yet.
But the forest's voice—whatever had once protected it—seemed to speak again.
"Only the flame can cleanse the rot."
And in the distance, beyond the trees, a glow began to rise.
Not sun.
Not moon.
But something ancient.
Something waking.