Dawn Without Birds
No birds sang over Ashthorne.
Not at dawn.
Not today.
The sky should have been pale gold by now, soft and quiet, stained with early warmth. Instead, it was a dull, colorless gray—like the world was holding its breath and had no intention of releasing it.
Lira noticed it immediately.
She stood at the edge of the staging courtyard with a dozen other selected students, breath fogging faintly in front of her lips. No wind stirred her cloak. The sigil-lamps lining the walls burned steady and low, casting long shadows that refused to move.
It felt wrong.
Everything felt paused.
The Weeping Forest loomed beyond the outer gate.
It didn't rage.
It didn't thrash.
It waited.
She swallowed and touched the bond.
Caelum stood three paces ahead of her, already in position near the forward ward pylons. His posture was relaxed—too relaxed given the circumstances. Hands folded behind his back. Eyes empty of reaction.
Like a man standing before an appointment rather than a death zone.
She hated how calm he looked.
She hated how part of her leaned on that calm to keep herself upright.
Marenne stood to her left, layers of stabilizing talismans strapped beneath her cloak. Her notebook was already open, pen twitching.
Jalen stood slightly behind them, pale as stone, muttering under his breath.
"First forest deployment… with the academy's biggest walking violation of reality… this is fine… this is survivable… probably…"
Kael Dravos walked the line of participants, boots striking the stone with brutal clarity.
"Final check," he barked. "Formation Echo-Seven active?"
A chorus of acknowledgments rang out.
"Support anchors stabilized?"
"Confirmed!"
"Extraction arrays charged?"
"Thirty-second recharge minimum!"
His gaze landed on Lira.
"Anchor."
She straightened.
"Yes, Instructor."
"You are not a hero," Kael said flatly. "You do not rush. You do not improvise. You do not follow instinct unless the Threadbearer is actively collapsing."
Lira nodded.
"Yes, Instructor."
Kael's eyes hardened.
"If you drop, we don't rush to save you. We pull him out."
The words struck cold and clean.
She didn't flinch.
"I understand," she said quietly.
Kael studied her for a long moment.
Then nodded once.
"Good."
He turned.
Valen lifted a hand.
"Final positioning," he said. "Threadbearer forward. Anchor offset right. Support net active on my mark."
The wards along the gate flared bright.
Silver sigils surged up the stone pillars, racing skyward in twisting helixes.
The massive iron gates shook.
Not outward.
Inward.
The forest was pressing.
Caelum — The Moment the World Steps Aside
Caelum watched the ward patterns shift.
Not as lights.
Not as geometry.
As pressure.
The academy's protective systems weren't walls.
They were agreements.
Treaties carved into reality with sigils and blood and centuries of reinforcement.
And right now—
those treaties were being politely, deliberately ignored.
The forest was no longer testing the barrier.
It was negotiating directly with him.
You are coming anyway, its whisper translated across thread-space.
So we meet you here.
His Proto-Sigil pulsed.
Not violently.
Curiously.
It recognized another structure built on old rules and broken laws.
A mirror, but grown from roots instead of threads.
He felt Lira's presence sharpen.
Her fear spiked—
then steadied deliberately.
Good.
She was choosing composure.
Valen raised his hand.
"Mark."
The pylons flared.
The support web deployed—hundreds of faint sigil-lines threading through the air in a vast, radial lattice.
Marenne's voice cut through the tension.
"Web integrity at ninety-four percent!"
Kael's voice echoed.
"Open the gate."
The wards disengaged.
Not with a roar.
Not explosively.
They slid aside with a sound like silk tearing underwater.
The iron gates opened.
The smell hit immediately.
Not rot.
Not decay.
Blood.
Old sap.
Wet stone.
Lira gagged.
The forest exhaled.
Mist rolled out.
It touched the first line of students and stopped.
Not barred.
Paused.
Waiting.
Caelum stepped forward.
The mist touched him.
And parted.
First Step Past Safety
The moment his boot crossed the threshold, the world changed.
Not visually.
Not audibly.
Conceptually.
The pressure inside Caelum's skull doubled.
The threads around him thickened, dragging slightly as if he'd stepped into viscous fluid instead of air.
Behind him, the academy still existed.
Ahead of him, the forest didn't agree with that premise.
He advanced one more step.
Then another.
The forest accepted his presence.
Not as prey.
Not as intruder.
As a process.
Lira followed.
The second her foot passed the threshold, the air seized her lungs.
She gasped.
Her body tried to recoil—
and failed.
The bond flared instantly.
Caelum felt the jolt through his spine.
A sharp spike of panic—
redirected—
compressed—
anchored.
Lira steadied.
Barely.
The mist brushed her face.
And whispered her name.
Not aloud.
Not in words.
In memory.
Her knees wobbled.
She remembered being small.
Too small.
Hiding under a table while voices argued overhead.
Fear without context.
Tears without sound.
The forest tasted it.
Liked it.
Caelum's threads snapped into action, wrapping that fragment of memory and locking it behind conceptual insulation.
The whisper broke.
Lira inhaled sharply.
"I'm okay," she whispered.
He didn't ask.
He already knew.
The Forest Begins to Close
They proceeded in controlled formation.
Web threads stretched behind them like luminous spider silk.
Each step deeper thickened the air.
The trees weren't tall.
They were layered.
Bark folded over bark over older bark, like something growing armor out of accumulated corpses.
Roots surfaced openly here—great, ribbed arcs of wood and bone that forced the formation to thread between them single file.
The academy's boundary vanished behind mist within seconds.
Lira glanced back.
The gates were already gone.
Not closed.
Unremembered.
She swallowed.
"Is that normal?" she whispered.
"No," Marenne murmured tightly. "It's defensive forgetting. The forest doesn't like exits."
Jalen whimpered.
"That feels like information I should've been unconscious for."
The ground shifted subtly beneath their feet.
Not tectonically.
Strategically.
Caelum felt it immediately.
The ritual pressure was drawing nearer to the surface.
Not directly.
It was circling.
A hunter moving to herd prey.
He lifted his hand slightly.
The formation slowed.
Kael growled approval under his breath.
Valen's voice rang through the telepathic channel.
Pressure spike detected east-southeast. Adjusting web load.
The mist thickened again.
Not cold.
Warm.
Wet.
Breathing mist.
Something moved between the roots ahead.
Tall.
Hunched.
Too many joints.
"Contact," Kael snapped.
A shape pulled free from the fog.
Once, it had been human.
Now it was a mass of bark-fused flesh, antlered and hollow-eyed, sigil-scars crawling across its torso like living tattoos.
A Sigil Mutant.
It screamed without lungs.
Kael moved.
Two steps.
One strike.
His weapon cleaved through the creature's upper torso in a burst of black sap and shredded threads.
The corpse collapsed into mulch.
The forest went still.
For a heartbeat.
Then the pressure doubled.
"That wasn't the welcome party," Valen said.
"No," Caelum agreed. "That was a message."
Lira — The First Pull
The deeper they went, the harder it became to breathe.
Not because of oxygen.
Because of choice.
The forest kept nudging at her.
Tiny impulses.
Micro-decisions.
Turn left.
Slow down.
Step away from him.
She felt them like static between her thoughts.
Each suggestion carried an emotional flavor.
Safety.
Relief.
Rest.
It wanted her separate.
She clenched her jaw and leaned slightly closer to Caelum without touching him.
The bond burned warmer.
A warning.
A promise.
Something tugged at her sleeve.
She yelped.
A thin vine had slipped around her wrist.
Not tight.
Not restraining.
Curious.
Like a finger testing a pulse.
Before anyone could react, the vine split down the center into dozens of hair-thin tendrils and tried to burrow into her skin.
Lira screamed.
Caelum turned instantly.
Threads lashed out in a blinding arc.
The vine disintegrated into gray dust before it could pierce skin.
The forest recoiled.
Forcefully.
Lira collapsed to her knees, clutching her arm.
Caelum was there in an instant.
His hand hovered inches from her skin.
Not touching.
Stabilizing.
"Stay with me," he said.
"I am," she gasped.
Her arm burned where the vine had touched her, but the skin was intact—only faint silver thread-marks remained.
Marenne stared at them in shock.
"It tried to graft directly to her anchor point," she whispered. "That's not scavenger behavior."
"No," Valen said grimly through the link. "That's ritual response behavior."
Kael turned slowly toward the surrounding fog.
"It knows what she is," he muttered.
Caelum straightened.
"And it's testing how quickly I will respond."
He met the trees.
The trees did not look away.
The Thing Beneath the Roots
They reached the outer perimeter of the ritual site by midmorning.
The forest grew unnaturally quiet.
No whispers.
No pressure pulses.
No hostile probing.
Just absence.
Like the world was waiting for a cue.
A massive stone ring lay half-buried among the roots ahead.
Ancient.
Cracked.
Carved with sigils that predated Ashthorne itself.
The ground within the circle had collapsed into a shallow depression where faint white light seeped up through fractures in the earth.
The wound.
Valen's voice tightened.
"We've reached target zone."
Kael signaled for halt.
Support web settled into maximum tension pattern.
Caelum felt the vibration through every strand of the Proto-Sigil.
The forest wasn't attacking.
Not yet.
It was watching what he would do.
Lira's breathing was shallow.
Her body knew what this place was even if her mind didn't.
"This is where it remembers being cut," she whispered.
"Yes," Caelum said.
"And where it decides if we deserve to be cut in return?"
"Also yes."
Kael barked commands.
"Threadbearer forward only. Everyone else maintain radius. No sudden surges. No heroics."
Caelum stepped toward the circle.
The moment his foot crossed the ancient sigil line—
The world folded sideways.
The wound flared bright.
And something vast, unseen, coiled beneath the earth and opened one immense, patient eye.