Sleep came slowly, first as a weight pressing on her eyelids, then as a tide pulling her into the spaces between reality and vision. The firelight danced over Maerwyn’s pale features as she crouched nearby, her hands busy with charms and knives, yet her gaze never left the dark treeline. Thessa drifted asleep before she realized it, and when she did, she was standing not in the forest, but inside a temple.

  The temple was vast, its walls carved from stone that seemed older than the forest itself. Shadows clung to the columns, curling like smoke, and faint luminescence outlined the edges of statues so detailed they seemed almost alive. The air smelled of dust, incense, and something metallic that made her stomach twist.

  A voice spoke then, soft as a wind, yet it vibrated inside her skull.

  “Thessa.”

  The name made her shiver, though no one was there. She looked around. The statues’ eyes seemed to track her, but they did not move.

  “What will you trade for the seeing?”

  “I didn’t ask for this so why must I give you something.”

  The voice’s laugh was dry.“Do you know the meaning of giving and keeping?”

  “No matter what, I refuse to give you anything!” Thessa said her voice swelling with confidence

  “You will regret this!” The voice said harshly

  When the words arrived like flint, the dream peeled away. The sound of the real world came back as an edge: a twig snapped somewhere near the ring, the low rustle of a watchful thing shifting. Maerwyn’s hand was against her shoulder, firm, insisting, pulling her back from that place.

  “Wake,” Maerwyn said

  Thessa’s mouth felt dry. “Miss Maerwyn something talked to me in my dream. It asked for me to give something to it in return for keeping my sight.” Thessa looks at Maerwyn and still seen the black shadow.

  Maerwyn’s eyes narrowed “And your answer?”

  Thessa folded her hands on her knees. “I said I would give nothing and keep my sight.”

  Maerwyn “Good, Never give anything to others without something in return.”

  “But I can still see the black shadows.”

  “Whatever came to you in your dream probably was trying to trick you.” Maerwyn hissed through her teeth.

  Dawn did not arrive gently.

  It bled into the forest in thin gray threads, seeping between the trees.The fire had burned low, reduced to a bed of dim coals that pulsed faintly beneath a veil of ash. Mist clung close to the earth, drifting in pale sheets through the clearing.

  The dream lingered behind her eyes like smoke that would not clear. The temple’s vast stone columns. The statues watching. The voice—soft and certain—asking what she would trade.

  You will regret this.

  The words had followed her out of sleep.

  Maerwyn stood at the edge of the powder boundary, her posture rigid, head tilted slightly as if listening to something far beyond the reach of ordinary ears. The gray line she had scattered the night before had darkened, as though disturbed.

  “Prepare to leave.” Maerwyn said quietly

  Thessa pushed herself to her feet.

  The forest felt different.

  The mist seemed thicker than before, clinging to the trunks and pooling between roots. Shapes shifted at the edge of her vision.

  She did not look at them.

  They broke camp quickly. Maerwyn erased the last of the fire with a careful sweep of her foot and crushed the powder boundary beneath her heel.

  They stepped back beneath the canopy.

  Seven days passed beneath the trees, though the forest gave no clear measure of time.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The sun rarely touched them. Light filtered through the canopy in thin, diluted strands that made morning and afternoon nearly indistinguishable.

  On the second day, Maerwyn taught her how to walk without announcing herself heel first was wrong in marshland; toe first was wrong in rot. The earth had moods. It favored patience. By the fourth day, Thessa’s steps had grown quieter.

  On the fifth day, Maerwyn taught Thessa that seeing was not the same as looking.

  They stopped beside a clearing where the trees grew in an uneven circle, their bark scarred with old marks. Maerwyn told her to stand still and describe everything she could see.

  Thessa spoke of trees, moss, fog, broken branches.

  Maerwyn shook her head.

  She instructed Thessa to close her eyes.

  “Now tell me what is wrong.”

  At first, Thessa heard nothing but her own breathing. Then slowly subtly she began to notice the absence of things. No insects. No wind moving through the upper leaves. No small animal rustling in the brush.

  When she opened her eyes again.

  “Your eyes will lie to you,” Maerwyn said. “Fear will lie louder. Learn to see what should be there.”

  On the sixth day, Maerwyn spoke of exchange.

  They walked most of the morning in silence before the witch finally said, “Everything in this world moves by trade.”

  She had Thessa pick up a smooth stone from the forest floor.

  “Throw it.”

  Thessa did.

  The stone struck a tree and fell.

  “What changed?” Maerwyn asked.

  “The tree bark,” Thessa answered. “It chipped.”

  “And your arm?”

  “It aches.”

  Maerwyn nodded. “You gave force. The world returned resistance.”

  “Never accept a gift without knowing its cost,” Maerwyn warned.

  Thessa thought of the temple.

  Of the voice asking what she would trade.

  By the seventh day, the forest had grown steeper, the ground slanting upward into rocky terrain.

  Maerwyn chose this day to teach her about fear.

  They encountered something near dusk, a low, guttural growl from somewhere beyond the tree line. Not close enough to attack.

  Thessa froze.

  The growl came again.

  Thessa’s heartbeat thundered in her ears.

  “Fear sharpens you,” Maerwyn continued. “But only if you hold it. If it holds you, you are prey.”

  She forced Thessa to walk forward slowly toward the sound. Not recklessly. But steadily.

  The creature never revealed itself.

  Eventually, the growling stopped.

  “It was measuring you,” Maerwyn said once they passed through safely.

  By the time night swallowed the last of the trees, the forest began to thin in earnest.

  On the morning of the eighth day, the trees ended.

  The canopy broke apart overhead, splintering into the bare sky the color of tarnished iron. Before them stretched a wide rocky plateau, rising in uneven shelves of slate and fractured stone. The wind moved unhindered there, sweeping across the open land in long, hollow breaths.

  They climbed for hours.

  The plateau stretched farther than it first appeared, broken occasionally by jagged outcroppings that jutted from the stone like the ribs of some buried giant. Cracks split the earth in long, wandering lines.

  By midday, the wind had grown colder. Here the wind was unimpeded, slamming into the pair.

  Maerwyn slowed near a ridge where the plateau dropped off steeply into a ravine. The wind howled through the gap, producing a low, mournful tone that carried across the stone.

  “Look,” Maerwyn said.

  Thessa approached carefully and peered over the edge.

  The ravine was deeper than she expected, its walls sheer and jagged. Far below, she thought she saw movement shifting shadows threading through the darkness.

  She blinked.

  Nothing.

  Only rock.

  “What do you see?” Maerwyn asked.

  “Nothing,” Thessa answered.

  Maerwyn’s gaze flicked toward her.

  “Look again.”

  Thessa focused.

  At first, there was only stone and shadow. Then, faintly she saw some type of creature blending into the rock.

  “That is a Rock-Skipper.” Maerwyn stated

  “They are a dangerous creature; they wait and lurk in shadows while throwing stones at their prey to weaken them. It would be best not to disturb it.”

  The pair makes their way around the ravine.

  The wind had not softened by nightfall. The sky above the plateau turned a bruised purple as the sun sank behind distant cliffs, leaving only the faintest wash of light along the horizon. The air was thinner here, biting at Thessa’s lungs. Her muscles ached from the long climb, and her stomach protested the sparse rations of the day.

  Maerwyn stopped near a cluster of fractured slabs, their edges sharp and uneven.

  “This is where we rest,” she said. She began gathering small, dry pieces of stone and debris, arranging them carefully in a pattern that mimicked the forest boundary. Thessa crouched nearby, trying to mirror her movements, though her hands shook with cold and exhaustion.

  Maerwyn’s hand brushed against her shoulder, grounding her in the present. “Rest,” the witch said quietly.

  Thessa curled against the cold stone, eyes scanning the semicircle of standing slabs, heart racing, yet she could not close them fully.