They found the clearing by accident.
It lay a half-day north of the stream, where the elderwood thinned and the mist clung low, crawling like living breath across the underbrush. There were no birds here. No sign of game. Just the kind of silence that pressed against skin.
Evelyn felt it first—like a thread in her gut tugged taut.
Torren unsheathed his blade without a word.
The trees opened into a hollow bowl of scorched earth. White ash blanketed everything. Trunks had been shattered, not burned—exploded from within, like something had ruptured beneath their bark. At the center stood the remnants of a Warden post.
It was broken.
Not just damaged—ruined. The obsidian pillar cracked from base to crown, its wards dead and bleeding faint wisps of pale energy.
"By the Guild," Torren muttered. "This was recent."
Evelyn stepped forward slowly, boots crunching through ash. Her fingers brushed the surface of the shattered post. Warm.
"I think someone tried to anchor a ward here," she whispered. "Tried and failed."
Torren pointed to the far side of the clearing. "There."
Burn marks. Not fire, but energy. Scorch lines that curved in unnatural spirals.
Echoed blood.
And beside it, a long smear of red—too rich to be beast-blood.
"Someone was dragged," Evelyn said. "Wounded."
"Or worse." Torren's jaw tightened. "That trail's not more than a day old."
She followed the smear with her eyes until it vanished into the western brush. Her fingers curled tighter around the crystal shard in her pocket.
"It was a Warden," she said. "There had to be. No one else would stand ground here."
Torren nodded. "Which means someone might still be alive."
Evelyn looked back once—toward the ruined pillar. Its base still flickered with glyphs too old to name. Her mother had drawn similar sigils once, in ink that glowed faintly when it rained.
Some songs should not be remembered.
The echo of her mother's words chilled her more than the ash.
"Let's follow the trail," Evelyn said.
Torren hesitated. "You're sure?"
"No," she admitted. "But I think it's waiting for us either way."