The village of Isenhold smelled of honeybread and river-thistle that morning, bright with banners and the crackle of spring bonfires. Corewood ribbons hung from the elder trees, painted in childish loops—names scrawled in berry dyes and copper ash, curling with hope.
Evelyn ran her fingers along one as she passed, the wood warm beneath her touch. The bark always felt different on Festival Day—more alive, as if the trees leaned just slightly closer to listen.
The air shimmered faintly with mageglow. Pale orbs drifted overhead, bobbing with the breeze, each no larger than a chicken egg and trailing strands of cold white fire. The Warden Lights, the old ones called them. Though they no longer burned, they remembered how.
"Stay near the stone lines," her mother warned, one hand resting lightly on Evelyn's shoulder as they passed beneath the southern archway. "Even today. Especially today."
The outermost wards glowed where they'd been renewed—fresh-carved runes kissed with silver soot. Lines of protection, memory, and sleep. All carved by hand. All fed by intent.
"Do they really keep the Echoed out?" Evelyn asked, looking sideways at one of the wardposts, half-choked in spring ivy.
Her mother's lips thinned. "They keep us in. There's a difference."
That was not the sort of answer one gave on Festival Day. But it was the only kind her mother knew.
The heart of Isenhold pulsed with music and shouted trades. Children danced around the green ring, trailing ribbons, while elders offered sprigs of willow and copper leaf for blessings. A traveling skald from the Fifth Kingdoms had set up near the mill wheel, strings of his reedharp humming under the low moan of the water chute.
Everywhere Evelyn turned, someone smiled. And yet the smiles didn't quite reach the eyes. Not this year.
Too many empty chairs at the long tables. Too many houses with fresh blue glyphs daubed on their doors—the sign of mourning. The beasts hadn't come this far in living memory, but there were tales. Southland villages burned to root. Wards failing like snapped bowstrings. Cores stolen from the still-breathing.
But today was Festival. Today was for light.
Evelyn and her mother wound their way through the crowd, nodding to neighbors, stepping around impromptu dancing and an apprentice who'd gotten herself tangled in her own spellstring.
They reached the herbalist's house, an old round-chamber of thatch and bone-slat with bottles hanging in the rafters like wind chimes. The door creaked open before they knocked.
"Thought I heard your step," said Mistress Yaveen. She was broad-shouldered and sharp-nosed, with wrists wrapped in dried ivy and a necklace of hollowed beetle shells.
"You always say that," Evelyn said with a grin.
"That's because it's always true. Come in."
The scent inside was thick—oils, boiled roots, powdered shell. The walls were lined with herb bundles and dried bloodvine curled into prayer knots. A glow-crystal in the far corner cast everything in soft amber light.
They'd come for their annual potion tinctures—resistance boosters, memory-fortifiers, a vial of quickmend for cuts. Routine things. Safe things.
But the conversation wasn't safe.
"There are stories," Yaveen said softly as she packed bottles into a leather satchel. "From the Southreach border. Three villages dark. Not raided. Not burnt. Just... gone."
Her mother's hand froze halfway to a pouch of coin. "Gone?"
"No smoke. No sign. Just silence where song should be."
The words settled between them like dust.
Evelyn shifted on her feet, suddenly cold despite the warmth of the room. "Why wouldn't the Guild send someone?"
Yaveen snorted. "Because there's no war in Wyrmfen. Not officially." Her smile was grim. "Besides, the Guild prefers monsters they can catalog. What's coming now?" She shook her head. "It doesn't fit in a ledger."
They left with the satchel, the warning, and too many unspoken fears.
The Festival danced on, louder now—like it could drown the truth in song.
But as dusk crept in, Evelyn stepped away from the crowd, slipping between cottages and overgrown fences toward the edge of the elderwood.
It was a place she knew well—the grove near the old stone ring where the trees bent in strange directions, where mushrooms grew in perfect spirals. Children called it Witchbend Hollow. Her mother never forbade it, only said, "Be sure the trees remember you."
She stood there now, half in shadow, half in golden light, and the world held its breath.
Then she heard it.
A humming.
Low and sweet. Soft as a lullaby, but deeper than any human voice. It pulsed behind her breastbone, more felt than heard, like a note only her blood understood.
She turned—but no one was there.
The humming stopped.
Birds returned to their chirping. The Warden Lights overhead bobbed gently, untroubled.
But something had looked at her. She knew it. Not with eyes. With intent.
And worse still—whatever it was… it knew her name.