The forest swallowed them whole. The clash of chains and the thunder of breaking stone faded into memory, replaced by the suffocating quiet of dripping leaves and whispering branches. The ground was slick with moss, every footstep swallowed into damp earth.
Smoke still clung to Leo, stubborn as a second skin. It curled faintly from him even now, trailing upward like ghostly fingers, leaving behind a taste of ash and iron on every breath. His lungs burned as if he had swallowed the fragment's fire.
They didn't speak. They couldn't. The memory of the ravine still hung heavy in their bones, the scream, the breaking chains, the glow that had not been human. No one dared to name it, not while they were still moving, as though words alone might bring it roaring back.
