The fire crackled low, casting long, thin shadows across the shattered roots. No one spoke. Even Wren, who always had something clever to say, sat still, eyes locked on the twisted forest beyond their camp. The wind here was quiet, but it never stopped moving. It breathed through the trees like something alive. Watching.
Joe sat with his back to a stone, cloak drawn tight around him. His chest still ached where Kaelen had burned the sigils into him. The scar pulsed faintly, like it remembered something he didn't. He kept catching himself drifting into thoughts that weren't his. Faces he didn't know. Screams he hadn't heard.
Or maybe he had.
Kaelen paced near the edge of the camp, fingers moving through invisible patterns in the air. Not casting. Not yet. Preparing. Every so often, they would pause and stare into the branches, head tilted like they were listening to something just beyond hearing. Joe wondered if it was the same whisper that tugged at his own mind.
Riven sat farther off, sharpening his blade with slow, deliberate strokes. He hadn't cleaned the blood from his armor. Joe wasn't sure if it was out of stubbornness or because it didn't matter anymore. The Hollowed Timber had marked them, and it wasn't finished.
Joe rubbed his arms. The storm felt muffled here. Not gone, just smothered. He could still summon sparks, but they didn't crackle the way they should. The trees drank sound and light and presence. Every breath felt borrowed. Every movement watched.
Wren finally broke the silence.
"You know what I miss?" he said, leaning forward, letting the flickering shadows dance across his scarred face. "Real bread. Crusty, warm, doesn't crumble in your bag the moment you run. Haven't had that since before the sky cracked."
Joe raised an eyebrow. "That's what you're thinking about right now?"
Wren grinned faintly. "If I die here, I want my last thought to be carbs. Not teeth growing out of tree bark."
Riven gave a rare snort. "There was this tavern in Ascalith. South ring. They had stew that could burn the hair off your chest and a barkeep who'd break your nose for asking for anything weaker."
He trailed off. The fire caught the tension in his jaw. He didn't finish the thought.
Kaelen stirred from their stillness, opening their eyes slowly. "I don't remember food. Not the way you all do. My kind ate when the storm allowed. We fasted when it didn't."
Wren gave him a sideways look. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Kaelen's gaze didn't leave the fire. "Magic feeds differently. It takes from us long before we realize what we've given."
Joe watched them each in turn. "When this is over if we make it first round's on me. Real food. Real drinks. No fungus-bread or ration bricks."
Wren leaned back. "You hear that? Storm boy's buying."
Joe smirked. "Don't call me that."
"It's endearing."
Riven shook his head. "It's stupid."
Kaelen tilted their head. "It suits you."
Joe let the silence return, but this time it didn't feel quite so sharp. For a moment, even the trees seemed to pause in their slow breathing. He watched the others, so different, so damaged , and felt the weight of something unfamiliar.
Belonging.
He hadn't asked for it. Hadn't expected it.
But it was here.
He pulled the stone mask from his pack, turning it over in his hands. The cracks formed a pattern he still couldn't read, but something about it tugged at him. A whisper. A warning. Maybe both.
Kaelen noticed. "Don't sleep with that near you."
"Why?"
"Because some things speak through symbols. And some masks wear you."
Joe set it aside but didn't move far.
Wren laid back, arms crossed behind his head. "So what's the plan? We wake up, follow more rotting roots, get haunted again, and hope the next monster isn't wearing our faces?"
Kaelen answered, "We reach the Rootspire. Everything points to it."
Riven looked at Joe. "And you? What do you want out of this? Power? Revenge?"
Joe stared into the fire. The sparks reminded him of the lightning he'd barely survived wielding.
"I want to know why this place remembers me. Why the monsters know my name. Why I still hear voices that aren't mine when I close my eyes."
Wren murmured, "That's a lot of wanting."
Joe nodded. "Yeah. And I think the Rootspire has answers."
He didn't say what else he felt. That the Rootspire didn't just hold answers.
It was calling him.
The fire popped. Something in the woods clicked back.
Riven stood, hand on his sword. "We're being watched."
Kaelen's frost swept outward in a slow arc.
The trees were still.
Then a whisper curled through the branches.
A child's voice.
"You're not supposed to be here."
Joe's blood ran cold.
The voice was his.
But it was younger.
And it was coming closer.