The Viremont woods was worse than the city. The trees leaned inwards like they were whispering about him. The light barely pierced the canopy. Moss muffled his steps. After an hour, he realized he hadn't seen any wildlife.
Only silence. A suffocating kind.
The Gravebloom, as it turned out, was rarer than expected. Every pale sprout he spotted turned out to be moss, or lichen, or dead leaves. He kept walking.
Or at least until the fog rolled in.
He turned to mark his trail — but there was no trail. The forest behind him had shifted.
Panic crept in. He walked faster.
Then, through the mist, he saw it.
Black stone towers. Cracked spires. A gate half-collapsed under its own age.
A castle.
Or what remained of one.
It stood like a corpse of royalty — regal in structure, decayed in presence. Ivy choked the walls. Windows stared back like hollow eyes. A long-dead banner flapped weakly above the main gate.
Seth approached slowly, heart pounding, breath held.
When his boot crossed the threshold, the broken arch of the gate, the world shifted.
The air dropped ten degrees. The fog vanished instantly, like peeled back by unseen hands. The forest behind him? Gone. Replaced by black sky, endless frozen ground as far as the eye can see, and a strange weight pressing on his shoulders.
Like the rules of the world had changed. Like he'd stepped into a place not meant for mortals.
Seth stood in the courtyard of a forgotten castle.
Only one thought came to mind:
Where the hell am I?