The tunnel beyond the Veinwater Pool breathes them out into a hollow where the forest's ceiling bows low, heavy with hanging moss. It's quieter here — not the hush's silence, but an older, expectant quiet, like the hush itself is holding its breath, listening.
Rafi touches the bark of the nearest tree. It pulses faintly beneath his fingertips, as if a buried heartbeat runs through trunk to branch. For a moment, he wants to press his ear against it, listen to the echoes inside the wood. But the braid girl shakes her head — no more listening.
They need to speak for themselves now.
All around the hollow, trees lean inward. Each trunk is pale, gashed open in old cuts that have long since grown over: initials, arrows, desperate prayers carved by other runaways who came this far but went no further. Some scratches are so old they're barely visible, just faint ridges under moss.
Rafi pulls his small pocket knife from his belt. He tests its edge on his thumb — it's dull, nicked, but it will do. He catches the braid girl's gaze, asking without asking.
She nods. Then she kneels beside him and holds the torch closer.
He places the knife against the bark. It resists at first, thick and wet like flesh. He digs harder, forcing the blade to bite. Chips fall away, exposing fresh wood that bleeds a clear, sticky sap.
He carves slowly: R + B — their initials, bound by a jagged line. Underneath, he scratches a crooked eye — their sign for we see you — and then three slashes: We came. We fought. We survived.
When he leans back, sap glistens in the cuts, catching the torchlight like tears.
The braid girl steps up next. She uses a stone blade she found back in the tunnels — sharper than his rusted knife. She works methodically, her breath steady even as her hands tremble. She carves her old camp number — the identity forced on her — and then slices a line clean through it.
Erased.
Together they move tree to tree, leaving their truths where the hush once lied. Some marks are words: FREE. Some are shapes: a sun, a crow, a broken crown. Each cut leaks a bit of the hush's power away. Each wound says: We were here. We were real.
When they finish, the hollow bristles with fresh scars. It smells of sap and rebellion.
Rafi sits down hard on a root, knife still sticky in his hand. The braid girl crouches beside him. They don't speak. There's nothing left to explain.
Above them, the hush shifts through the canopy, uneasy. It can drown voices, but scars are stubborn things. These trees will carry their defiance long after they're gone.
He presses his palm against the biggest trunk, feeling its raw cuts warm beneath his skin.
One forest. One fight left.
The hush waits deeper still — tangled in roots and bone and memory. And now, if they die in that darkness, the scars will remember for them.