The forest closed in around them, a suffocating embrace of ancient wood and deepening shadows. The Whispering Wilds lived up to its name; every gust of wind through the impossibly tall, cathedral-spire trees sounded like a hushed, eerie voice, whispering secrets just out of reach. A low, unsettling murmur, constant and always present, filled the cool, damp air that smelled richly of wet earth and strange, unfamiliar plants. Sunlight was a forgotten luxury here, barely daring to pierce the impossibly thick canopy, plunging the forest into a perpetual twilight.
Eleanor held her axe low, its familiar weight a comfort. The Sunfire within her hummed, a quiet anticipation beneath her skin, ready to burst forth at a moment's notice. Her golden eyes constantly swept the dense undergrowth, searching for any flicker of movement, any sign of ambush. But even with the mission's seriousness, her mind kept drifting. The Phantom Warden. The chilling, almost personal evil in Mariam's cold, empty stare. The memory sent a raw shiver down her back, a sharp, icy reminder of the true evil they were up against. She wondered what Mariam was planning, and if she, if any of them, could ever truly be ready for it.
Katya's head snapped towards Eleanor, her sharp eyes cutting through the dimness.
"You okay?" Eleanor asked quietly, a genuine concern in her voice.
Katya's shoulders tensed, a rigid line of defiance. "Yeah. Just not a fan of you acting like you've seen a goddess before."
Eleanor bristled, her own temper flaring. "I wasn't acting."
Katya didn't wait for her to finish. She strode ahead, a few paces in front of the group, her arms crossed tightly, radiating a strong tension with every step. She moved quickly, almost angrily, her bright platinum hair occasionally catching the scant slivers of light that managed to break through the oppressive canopy. She didn't look back, didn't say another word. She looked like she was trying to outrun her own shadow.
"What's with her?" Eleanor whispered to Zak, keeping her voice low, genuinely confused. "Why is she always so moody?" Eleanor really wanted to understand what made Katya so guarded, so prickly. It was like trying to hug a porcupine.
Zak glanced over at Katya's retreating back, then back at Eleanor, a faint look of sadness touching his face. He walked calmly beside her, a steady presence in the unsettling woods. "Don't take it personally. Katya's complicated." His voice was gentle, filled with an unspoken depth of understanding.
Eleanor raised an eyebrow, a slight frown creasing her brow. "I've noticed." She thought about Katya's sharp insults and cold stares. It wasn't just a bad mood; it felt like a deep, festering wound that had never truly healed.
Zak sighed softly, the sound barely audible over the forest's ethereal whispers. "You see, Katya, Theo, and I, we all grew up in the same village. It was a small, quiet place. Theo and I were orphans; our parents had died when we were very young, so we learned to take care of each other. Katya lived with her aunt and uncle. They treated her like their own child. She found us on the street and took us back to her place. Her aunt and uncle took us in, and for a while, we finally had something that felt like a real family, a place where we belonged."
He paused, his eyes sweeping cautiously over the endless trees around them, as if watching for ghosts among the shadows. His voice grew quieter, laced with a profound sadness.
"Then a goddess attacked. She was one of Mariam's Heralds. They swept through our village. It happened fast, and it was brutal. They destroyed everything. A lot of people died, including Katya's aunt and uncle. We lived, but she never really got over it. It changed her. She built walls around herself, making it impossible for anyone to get close."
Eleanor's eyes softened. A wave of understanding and profound sympathy washed over her. She knew exactly what it felt like to lose family to a goddess, to have that kind of gaping wound ripped into your soul. "I'm sorry. Really. That's truly awful. Which goddess did it?" She tried to keep her voice gentle, knowing how much pain such a memory could bring.
A few steps ahead, as if she possessed ears that could hear the quietest whisper, Katya's voice sliced through the silence. It was flat, hard, and unforgiving, like flint striking steel. "Aura."
Eleanor blinked, surprised. She paused for a moment, her mind struggling to connect that name to the powerful beings she knew. "Aura? You mean the Supreme Goddess of Wind?" Aura was known to be one of the most devastatingly powerful goddesses in Mariam's ranks. It was nothing short of a miracle that these four had survived her wrath.
Katya didn't break her stride. Her back remained to them, a rigid wall. Her voice was unnervingly calm, yet it carried a bitter, cold, and deeply angry edge. "She didn't even care. She just swept through, a storm that didn't care about anything. That woman feels nothing for anyone, not for the lives she ended, not for the homes she broke. Nothing."
A long, heavy silence descended, thick with the crushing weight of Katya's words and the unspoken pain of her past. The whispers of the forest seemed to deepen, as if mourning alongside them. Eleanor felt a familiar knot of sadness tightening in her own chest.
Theo, sensing the growing, suffocating tension, shuffled his feet, attempting to break the heavy mood. "Well... umm, this is fun... I think," he muttered sarcastically, forcing a weak smile. He looked at Eleanor, then at Katya's rigid back, but even he couldn't quite make it sound convincing. His humor, usually a ray of sunshine, barely cast a shadow in this darkness.
"Wait." A new, unsettling thought had clearly sparked in Zak's mind. "Back at the briefing. You said something about the Phantom Warden mentioning Mariam. You said he spoke to you."
Eleanor nodded. "Yes. I've seen Mariam before."
Theo's forehead wrinkled in confusion, then alarm. He stopped walking and turned fully to Eleanor, his eyes wide as saucers. "Hold on. You... saw her up close? The Grand Goddess?" His voice was barely a whisper, thick with disbelief and a tremor of fear. The idea of facing Mariam and living seemed utterly impossible to him. No one had ever done that.
Eleanor nodded, her jaw tight. "Yes." The word was heavy, like a painful confession.
Katya, still ahead, scoffed loudly. She spun around, her eyes blazing with a potent mix of anger and disbelief. "Yeah, right. That's a load of crap. She would've killed you instantly. Or she should've. No one just meets Mariam and walks away." Her voice was sharp, cutting, filled with doubt.
Eleanor's eyes narrowed, a cold glint appearing in their golden depths. Her voice, however, was steady, calm, but laced with an icy, undeniable determination that instantly silenced Katya. "I did see her. She killed my parents right in front of me. I had to bury them myself." The words hung in the air, a stark, painful truth that cut through any arguments, any doubt. The raw grief and power behind them were clear, undeniable.
Katya froze.
Just for a split second. Her entire body locked up, the color draining from her face. The anger in her eyes evaporated instantly, replaced by sheer shock, then a raw, mirroring pain. It was the pain of someone who understood that kind of soul-crushing loss all too well, the pain of a shared, unholy scar.
Then, just as quickly, she spun away. Her face became unreadable again, a carefully constructed mask. She said nothing. Not a single word. She just walked ahead, her wings pulled so tight against her back it looked like she was trying to fold herself into nothingness, trying to shrink away from the world and the painful truth Eleanor had just revealed. The silence she left behind was even heavier than before.
Theo looked between them awkwardly, his usual cheerful demeanor completely gone. He cleared his throat. "Right... well, we're definitely trauma bonding now. Gotta love it," he mumbled, attempting to inject some much-needed humor into the sudden, overwhelming tension. But even he couldn't quite make it sound funny. It felt more like a desperate gasp for air.
"Hey guys," Meredith said softly but firmly, her voice low and urgent, cutting through the heavy atmosphere like a knife. She had been listening, absorbing the painful secrets; her serious appearance hiding a fierce protectiveness. "Let's just focus, okay? We'll bring those goddesses down soon enough." Her hand instinctively went to the hilt of her blade, her eyes scanning the darkening woods around them. The sudden shift in mood among the younger Guardians was a dangerous distraction. They couldn't afford to be off guard here.
They pushed deeper into the forest. The faint light faded even further, turning the already dim woods into almost complete darkness. The leaves above them grew thinner, making the canopy feel less like a protective roof and more like a closing trap. The sun's kind rays couldn't reach this far at all now. Every twisted tree seemed to lean towards them, its silent, gnarled branches like listening ears, watching their every move.
Along the way, they could see chilling traces of their missing Guardians and other scouts. There were no bodies, but only their discarded clothes and weapons: a torn cloak here, a broken sword there. Some areas had blood staining the ground, crimson against the damp earth, but nothing else. No signs of struggle, no indication of a fight. Just these grim, abandoned remnants.
"Damn," Theo muttered, his voice grim. "Looks like those missing troops didn't make it after all."
"Something doesn't seem right," Gail added, a frown creasing her brow as she surveyed the scene. "Shouldn't there be bodies? Or at least, I don't know, skeletons?"
The air grew colder. With the chill came a new, musky scent that was utterly alien to the normal forest: an animalistic odor, but subtly wrong, corrupted. A creeping feeling of being watched grew stronger, making the hairs stand up on Eleanor's arms. She tightened her grip on her axe, her knuckles white.
Gail, all her usual flashy style gone, walked silently ahead, her focus absolute. She held up a hand, signaling for them to stop, then knelt near a patch of torn moss on the forest floor.
"These footprints are fresh," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "Looks like something big. Come look at this." She carefully moved aside the damp leaves, revealing a deep, clear claw mark pressed into the earth. It was easily twice the size of Eleanor's hand, dug deep into the soil.
Zak knelt beside her, tracing the outline of the grotesque mark with a careful finger. "That's not from any angelic animal we know," he confirmed, his voice grave. "It's too heavy and too clearly defined."
"And this?" Theo held up a cracked, delicate compass. Its glass was shattered, and its needle spun wildly, broken, a clear sign of distorted magic. "It belonged to Scout Seraphina. She was on the last team that went missing out here." His voice was filled with a growing dread. The broken compass was a grim omen.
Suddenly, a branch snapped in the distance. It wasn't a casual sound made by the wind; it was a loud, clear CRACK, sharp and deliberate. It sounded like something enormous had shifted its weight, a clear warning meant specifically for them.
A growl followed. It was low and deep, vibrating through the very ground beneath their feet, shaking the ancient roots. It wasn't the sound of a normal animal. It was something trying to sound like one, but with an unnatural, calculating edge.
Then, a voice. It was strong and wild, echoing strangely through the dense woods, seeming to come from every direction at once.
"You're in my territory."
They all turned at once, weapons ready, eyes fixed on the source of the sound.
"Ah, shit," Gail muttered, her eyes narrowing. "That doesn't sound good."
"Obviously," Meredith replied with a dry eye roll, though her stance was alert, blade already half-drawn. "Stay on guard."
From the trees, hidden moments before by some unseen trick of the light, emerged a woman. She was tall and slender, moving with effortless, primal grace, like a predator stalking its prey. She was dressed in dark furs and light leather armor, the colors blending seamlessly with the deep greens and browns of the Wilds, making her almost impossible to discern until she stepped into a faint, mossy clearing. She stood in a graceful, almost relaxed posture, as if she had all the time in the world. But her eyes, her golden eyes, with their sharp, vertical slits, and her two cat-like ears twitching above her human ones, told a different, far more dangerous story. They burned with a wild intelligence and a hungry, predatory gleam.
This was Ziza, the Beast Herald.