Part V: Something Else Escaped
Toren had to half-carry James through the trees.
The forest no longer seemed like the one they knew—something in the passage back from the rift had stretched the world, or maybe bent them. The stars overhead wheeled like they had forgotten their names. And the leaves… the leaves were humming. Not aloud. Not with sound.
With memory.
James stumbled again, his hand still bleeding from the sigil, skin pale with sweat.
"You shouldn't have reached for it," Toren muttered, supporting his weight. "You never reach in. It's not a mirror, James. It's a maw."
James didn't answer at first. His eyes flicked between the trees, unfocused. He looked like a man waking from a thousand-year sleep and still remembering the dream.
"It didn't want to kill me," he said at last. "That thing. The beast."
"No," Toren said, jaw tight. "It wanted to serve you."
James stopped walking.
Toren stopped too, turning just as James stared back over his shoulder—toward the rift, or where it should have been.
"You feel that?" James asked.
Toren frowned. "No. What?"
James closed his eyes. "Something's following it."
And in the deep of the trees, between the twisting roots and the pale night fog, a new shadow stirred.
No shape. No eyes. Just absence. A hole in the world, moving where it should not.
It slid between the trees like oil through paper.
James backed away, voice shaking. "That's not one of mine."
Toren's breath misted suddenly, though the air was warm.
Then they heard it.
A whisper—not like the Void's usual hunger, not temptation or madness. This one was cold. Curious. Ancient.
A voice like pages turning in a closed tomb.
"Unmarked. Untethered. Forgotten prince…"
Toren grabbed James by the collar. "Move."
They ran.
Branches tore at them, roots tried to trip them. The forest fought against them, but they broke through into open field, collapsing under the stars gasping for breath.
The whisper didn't follow.
It didn't need to.
It knew them now.
James lay in the grass, staring up. His mouth opened.
One word. All he could manage.
"…It's coming."