“Do you think they’ll be fine?” Ivy asked Nirva later that evening. Her voice trembled, and her heart felt tight in her chest—so full of worry she feared it might swallow her whole. Doubt crept in like a rising tide. What if Kaelthar and Neeko got hurt? What if they needed help—hers or Nirva’s—and the two of them had simply stayed behind in the safety of the Sanctuary?

  Nirva shifted her gaze toward her. She was perched on one of the thick branches overhead, legs folded neatly beneath her. For hours, she had been staring up at the sky, quiet and still, but Ivy knew better than to think she was resting. This was how Nirva listened to the forest. She sensed its movements, its whispers, and its warnings, in a way Ivy admired and sometimes envied.

  “Have you ever seen a dragonborn before Kaelthar, Ivy?” Nirva asked suddenly, turning onto her side with a soft rustle of leaves.

  Ivy shook her head. Her entire life had been spent here. Beyond the forest and its creatures, the world felt like a distant, half-understood dream.

  “Well, I have,” Nirva said. “I wandered for a long time after …” Her sentence faded, the old pain closing her off. Ivy never pushed her to speak about it. She knew Nirva would speak of her past only when she was ready. “It doesn’t matter,” Nirva continued after a moment, steadying her voice. “Before I settled here, I traveled far. I crossed paths with a dragonborn once—only briefly, but it was enough. Between that memory and what I’ve seen of Kaelthar, I have faith he’ll complete this mission and return to the forest safely.” She glanced down at Ivy, her eyes steady and sure. “You shouldn’t worry so much.”

  Ivy’s shoulders sagged. The bright optimism that usually lived inside her had grown dim, touched by all the horrors she had witnessed lately. It hurt her to see the forest—the place she loved more than anything—sickening and fading. It hurt even more to see so much death clinging to its roots and branches. She could only hope that, soon, all of it would finally come to an end.

  “Where do you think this corruption started?” Ivy asked quietly. The question had been circling her mind for days, looping endlessly with no answer in sight. She couldn’t even remember the exact moment the corruption had begun—only that it had crept across the forest piece by piece, like a slow poison stealing everything she knew.

  Nirva dropped from the branch with a silent leap and glided across the ground until she stood beside her. She reached out and gently brushed a loose strand of hair from Ivy’s face before speaking.

  “Some things just happen,” Nirva said softly. “Sometimes there isn’t an explanation … at least not in the beginning. All we see is the result. But we both feel the presence of something dark in these woods. Something that doesn’t belong. So yes, there is someone or something behind it.” She paused, her expression tightening with honesty. “What that is … I don’t know.”

  Ivy lowered her head with a small sigh, fighting the familiar sting behind her eyes—the burn that had become harder and harder to hold back.

  “But we will find the truth,” Nirva said firmly. “And when we do, we will put an end to it. All of it.”

  * * *

  It took Nirva quite some time to soothe Ivy’s mind that evening—and even then, she wasn’t sure she had truly succeeded. Ivy’s worry lingered, soft but stubborn, like a bruise beneath the skin. There would be no real peace, Nirva realized, not for either of them, until the source of the corruption was uncovered and destroyed.

  She stood by Ivy’s bedside for a long, quiet moment, simply watching her sleep. Ivy’s hair was spread around her, strands drifting across the pillow. In the stillness, Nirva felt she could count every freckle on her face. Ivy’s ears twitched faintly, reacting to some distant dream, and Nirva found herself wondering what images filled her mind—whether they were gentle or troubled.

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  At least Ivy was resting. Nirva was grateful for that. Sleep, however, would not come for her. Not tonight. Not with Kaelthar and Neeko gone, and only the two of them left to watch over the forest. She needed to stay alert and listen to the night and every shifting sound it carried.

  Nirva slipped away from Ivy’s bedside. She moved through the familiar spaces of the home—down the wooden steps, through the quiet hall, and toward the door that guarded the Sanctuary’s entrance. Each step was careful. Her ears attuned to the forest, searching for anything out of place. And something was.

  She couldn’t name it, not yet, but she felt it in her bones.

  The light within the grove dimmed by a fraction. The air cooled, just enough for her breath to tighten in her chest. Then a long, creeping shadow stretched across the Sanctuary clearing, sliding along the ground until it touched the base of the great tree, its fingers curling toward the trunk as if searching for a way inside.

  Some might have dismissed it as a trick of the light—a natural shift of dusk settling in.

  But not Nirva—not after everything they had faced. Too much had happened for this to be a coincidence.

  She stepped through a thicket, her eyes sweeping across the treeline—but nothing stirred. No flutter of wings. No rustling leaves. Not even the faint whisper of wind. Just silence, thick and unnatural. Nirva paused, holding herself still for a long moment. She waited, listening, wondering if the forest was trying to deceive her with its stillness. But nothing shifted. Nothing breathed.

  Her shoulders stayed tight. Maybe this was simply one of those nights when the forest felt stranger than usual. After all, she and Ivy had been on edge for so long that the memory of the forest’s natural rhythm seemed to be slipping further and further away.

  Still, she kept moving.

  Animals slipped back into the underbrush as she passed, retreating into the shadows. It was nothing unusual—she was used to creatures keeping their distance around her. Most feared her, and she preferred it that way. She loved the forest fiercely and protected it with everything she had, but distance made her duty easier. It kept emotions out of the way.

  The only person she didn’t want that distance from was… Ivy.

  That thought made her stop mid-step. She blinked, surprised by the realization. When was the last time she had wanted someone close to her? Probably never. Not even back in the village she once called home. She had grown up with her parents, but even then, she preferred solitude over crowded rooms and noisy company. Ivy was the one unexpected piece of luck that had wandered into her life—soft-spoken, kind, and impossibly gentle. Someone she never would have sought out, yet someone she now couldn’t imagine being without.

  Chasing the thought away, Nirva stepped toward the small stream that wound through the grove. She crouched at its edge and leaned over to check the water’s clarity. As always, it was crystal clear, and it seemed untouched by the corruption slowly crawling across the forest.

  She stared at her reflection for a long moment, studying the lines of her face—the stern eyes, the sharp angles, the mouth that was almost always settled in a frown. How could someone like Ivy enjoy the company of someone like her?

  Her brows furrowed at the thought … only her reflection didn’t mirror the movement.

  Nirva froze. Her lips parted in shock as she took in the sight below her. The woman staring back at her was not moving the way she was. The reflection’s brows remained smooth. Its expression shifted instead into a slow, wicked grin—twisted and mocking, as though it were laughing at her confusion.

  Nirva rarely found herself caught off guard, but this moment struck her like a hit. She blinked once.

  And just like that, the wrongness was gone.

  The reflection returned to normal—her own face, her own eyes, and her own familiar frown. Still. Unmoving. Ordinary.

  But the icy chill crawling down her spine didn’t fade. In that instant, her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach, and she knew—without any doubt—that something was very, very wrong.