The trail into the Grove was strangled by the forest. Massive roots buckled the earth, squeezing the path into a suffocating ribbon of dark mud that forced them into single file.

  A seam of dark loam ran between roots split by age and strain, while the canopy above formed a dense ceiling of overlapping mushroom caps and deformed branches. The air was too warm to be comfortable and too damp to properly breathe. Elias wiped sweat from under his eyes, only to find his fingers gritty and covered in silt.

  The Leshei scouts stopped before the last bend. They didn’t speak; they all slowed down together, their feet planted on the safer side of the threshold, bark-woven armour shifting with a soft crackle.

  The eldest scout; the one who had spoken least since Threadfall – broke the silence.

  "We won’t go any further," she said. Her mask tilted up, the carved stem-horns glistening in the faint light. "This is where listening too long becomes dangerous."

  Elias adjusted the strap biting into his collarbone. "Anything I should… do?"

  "Don’t pretend." She touched two fingers to the earth, almost a salute. "The Grove hates pretence more than it hates that blade."

  That wasn’t comforting.

  Fennroot on his perch on Elias’s left pauldron like a tuft of glowing moss, pretending not to be nervous, emitted a faint warbling sound. Its leaves had opened wider since they entered the Weeping Hollow, catching spores like breath. Now they folded tight again, the stem curling closer to Elias’s neck.

  The youngest scout looked at the little creature for a long moment. Something like sympathy softened her features beneath the paint.

  "If it guides you, follow," she murmured. "Not all roots here remember the same path."

  Elias nodded. He didn't understand, but he knew enough to keep his mouth shut.

  The eldest lifted a hand: not farewell, not blessing, just acknowledgement.

  "Come back if you can."

  Then they turned and left him there, woven boots whispering over fungus-slicked stone, shoulders squared against their worry. Not one of them looked back.

  Elias lingered half a second longer than he meant to. Reaching down, he gingerly felt across the wound on his calf. He’d patched himself up as best he could with shaky fingers after Graveborn Hollow. The bandage needed changing. The smell of copper rising from his blood was made all the sharper by the rotten vapour pervading his nose.

  He took a breath to calm himself. It tasted like wet bark, and something that reminded him of unwashed hospital scrubs after a thirty-hour shift.

  Fennroot’s leaves brushed his jaw. Elias muttered, "Yeah, I know. Forward."

  His next footstep took him into the Grove.

  The ambience changed immediately.

  The forest behind him muttered: wind, insects, the drip of distant water. The Grove had none of that. No wind. No bugs. No drip.

  Just the sense of breathing, the once-beautiful glade inhaled and exhaled in a slow and steady cadence, like a lung made of soil and grief.

  The Fennroot pressed tight against him. Elias placed a reassuring hand over it, feeling the small rhythmic tremors of its body. Alertness over fear; steady, waiting.

  The ground dipped gently, soft but not forgiving. Every step pressed against something that resisted, then reluctantly sank. His boots left deep prints, which the Grove did not fill.

  Spores drifted everywhere – faintly bioluminescent, pale yellow-green. The air hung swollen; its humid warmth clung to his armour like a fever he couldn’t sweat out properly. His bandaged calf throbbed in dull, angry pulses.

  A line of smooth fungus-stone led deeper, guiding him like the spine of some giant, buried creature. Ghost-white threads draped from the caps above, brushing his hair, shoulders, cheek – too light to push away, too persistent to ignore.

  A soft flick stirred to his left.

  Elias froze, his heart skipping against his ribs. Not a creature. Another memory.

  It flickered like shimmering heat – a Leshei child laughing as they chased spores that glowed pink in their wake. The laugh that followed didn't touch his ears, but spiked directly behind his eyes, sharp and sudden, vibrating against the inside of his skull.

  Then the echo folded in on itself and vanished. Spore-dust rained where it had been.

  Fennroot made a brittle little chirp, its leaves angled toward the absence.

  Elias whispered, "We’re not alone."

  The sword, ever vigilant, gave a tiny twitch – a metallic rattle on his back, letting him know.

  A bead of sweat ran down his temple, stinging the cut beneath his hairline where a Shambler had clipped him. He wiped at it, smearing the residual grime across his cheek.

  The Grove opened wider then, an expanse of dark soil encircled by massive root-pillars, each spiralling up towards the firmament. The air smelled... old, almost brittle. And beneath that: a hint of aromatic censers. Corrupt prayer. The Order of the Crimson Fyre.

  Elias’s stomach tightened. The scent of a war he never fought, and would never forgive. He swallowed then, a feeling of grime coating the inside of his throat.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  A fresh echo pulsed ahead, a Leshei healer tending a fallen warrior, chanting in a language that felt like leaves trembling in wind. Their hands glowed with soft green light. Hope – right before failure.

  Elias looked away. It hurt to watch kindness rot.

  The sword vibrated once. Strike.

  Elias’s fist clenched around the hilt until his knuckles ached. "No," he muttered under his breath. "Not until I understand."

  The hilt went still, sulking.

  He exhaled slowly through his nose, breath hot and sour behind his teeth. He walked on.

  As he moved deeper, whispering fragments tracked him – not literal speech, but thoughts remembered as words.

  They burned the roots. We couldn’t carry them all. Why did they bind him? Remember this, blade. Remember what they do.

  Elias’s boots dragged slightly, forcing him to slow. He caught himself on a mushroom trunk – cool, damp, firm as bone. His elbow flared with pain from a bruise he’d been ignoring since Threadfall Gully.

  He lifted his head to take stock, peering into the grove’s centre... and his breath stalled.

  Stone markers rose in a ring – anchors rather than graves, each carved with hollow spirals and lit from within by a faint green glimmer. Between them, the ground bulged, barrows from a deeper age.

  Fennroot’s glow dimmed, its stem curling tighter against him.

  The Grove smelled sharper now: damp earth with a metallic edge. His heartbeat felt too loud, each thud pressing against the bruise along his ribs. Before he realised, he had reached the first of the glowing stones.

  Elias stepped into the ring.

  He shouldn’t have been surprised when everything went silent again, but the quiet hit so abruptly that he regretted the breath he had just taken.

  Something shifted behind him. No roar, no screech, no footstep, just the tiniest scrape, bone on bark, or bark on bone.

  His skin crawled, goosebumps rising on his forearms beneath his armour, despite the heat.

  Elias didn’t turn immediately. Turning too fast might imply he was prey. His fingers adjusted on the hilt – not raising it, not drawing attention, just ready.

  Fennroot’s leaves trembled, its orientation changing, pointing behind him.

  Then he heard it: an intake of air. Not human, not animal – long, slow, weighed down by centuries.

  Elias’s own breathing struggled to keep from syncing with it. He turned, slowly, his ribs protesting with every inch.

  There, at the edge of the ring, something stood among the roots. Tall, hunched, arms hanging low with strands of fungus dragging from its fingers. Its head tipped to one side, not in curiosity but in recognition.

  Once more the sword roused itself, an angry stir running through the metal. Elias tightened his grip. He didn’t speak. Words would feel arrogant here.

  The silhouette stepped forward, one soft, liquid step, and the Grove seemed to lean in.

  He knew death well enough – the loosened jaw, the emptying eyes. But what stood before him now should have long known peace. Instead, it had been forced to keep moving when it should have been allowed to stop.

  The figure at the rim of the circle was close enough now that Elias could pick out fractured details: shoulders wrapped in withered vine-cords, ribs visible through gaps in moss-stained plate. Spores leaked softly from the hyphae that replaced the visage's hair, threads of fungus braided where braids of hair once were.

  Where eyes belonged, two dark hollows burned with a kaleidoscope of memories. Elias could not see pupils, but he somehow knew he was seen.

  Fennroot clawed its way beneath his jaw, every frond stiff with tension. Elias shifted his stance, trying not to look like he was pulling away. His bandage tugged on the cut above his calf, the skin beneath sticky, hot, a reminder of how badly he’d been chewed up already.

  The Pariah inhaled once more. It sounded like old roots breaking down into soil – a wet rustle under the earth.

  Elias’s voice came out rougher than intended. "I’m not here to hurt you."

  The Grove’s spores swirled, reacting as if the words themselves carried weight. The figure didn’t respond, not with sound.

  But the memory flickering around them both intensified.

  A Leshei council hall, bright, incense drifting, the same figure kneeling proudly, palm pressed to the earth. Cheers. Music. Younglings painting ceremonial ash upon their cheeks.

  Then.....

  A crack of red flame across bark-skin. Metal boots stomping through sacred roots. A scream cut short.

  The memory tore itself apart, collapsing into spore-dust that clung to Elias’s armour like grief.

  He swallowed hard. His throat tasted of iron again. The sword shifted in his grip—too eager.

  Elias blinked the vision away, gripping the sword tighter. A muscle in his forearm jumped.

  "Not yet," he whispered to the blade. He felt ridiculous scolding metal—but he also felt the vibration easing.

  The Pariah stepped forward again. No rush. No aggression. Just closing the distance.

  Roots behind Elias shifted in warning—a slow curl, tightening the perimeter. Not trapping him, but shaping a path forward with only one direction.

  A low hum rolled through the Grove. Not magic, but expectation.

  Elias finally spoke louder, his voice scraping in his throat: "I saw what happened to your Rootsinger. I'm trying to return what was stolen."

  That resonated.

  The Pariah’s chest expanded, plates creaking. A ripple of tension ran through the Grove—spores flashing brighter in a pulse, like a heartbeat. Then the figure’s head lowered—not in submission, but recognition.

  A soft whisper brushed across Elias’s mind, like a wind that wasn’t there: "...blade... remembers..."

  His jaw locked. He had no idea if he actually heard it—or if memory was doing the talking for both of them.

  Fennroot’s leaves brushed trembling paths against his throat, making a tiny noise—high, scared, but stubborn. Elias let his free hand settle lightly against the little creature’s back—grounding them both.

  The Pariah took another step. The sword vibrated again. Elias took a breath that hurt more than it helped.

  The Grove reacted.

  Pillars of root around them brightened, bioluminescent trails crawling upward toward the canopy like veins. Between those pillars, the air thickened—shadows gathering, but not to hide anything, to frame it. Every step Elias took forward was acknowledged—spores swirling away, clearing a narrow walkway. Not friendly, not hostile, just marking the start.

  The Pariah stopped at the far end of that path. Still. Waiting.

  Elias’s heartbeat stung at each bruise. His leg throbbed with every shift of his weight, threatening his stance. Sweat gathered beneath his collar, soaking the padded cloth against his skin. He rolled his shoulder once—a medic’s habit, loosening muscles before they seized under pressure.

  "Okay," he said quietly, mostly to himself. "Talk first, swing later."

  His voice sounded too loud in the stillness.

  He stepped toward the centre of the Grove. Fennroot dug tiny roots into the leather of his pauldron for grip. The memory-echoes followed him: a Leshy youth learning to hear the pulse of roots; a healer pulling sickness from soil itself; a warrior standing alone in a circle of flame, refusing to abandon his dying realm.

  They were all the same person, existing at different points in a life that had been bent too many times.

  The Pariah’s breathing slowed further, a long inhale... a long exhale... as if synchronising with Elias’s approach.

  A final cluster of stone anchors came into view—smooth, each carved with the motif of a spiral returning inward. A ritual circle. A place built for seeking answers. The ambient hum of the Grove climbed a notch. The sword trembled. Fennroot whined against Elias’s neck, the intensity of the ambient noise reaching a crescendo, and then…

  Elias stopped just outside the circle. Sweat blurred his vision; he blinked it away with an impatient swipe.

  The Pariah slowly raised a hand—a stiff movement, bark-skin cracking. Not to strike. It pointed.

  Forward.

  Elias looked down at his own feet—mud soaked into the fastenings of his boots, the weight of the moisture making them tighter than he remembered. He had one stupid, ordinary thought: These socks are never coming clean.

  It grounded him more than any bravery ever had.

  He stepped inside the circle.

  His chest tightened on instinct. The sword demanded release—a jolt through bone that made his fingers go numb for a heartbeat.

  Elias raised the blade slowly—not as a threat, but a statement. Fennroot shifted, leaves flaring with a faint bioluminescent glow.

  The Pariah’s fingers curled inward. The Grove... inhaled.

  Elias exhaled through clenched teeth. "Let’s do this right."

  Not shouted. Not heroic. Just tired. Just determined.

  The Pariah stepped into the circle to meet him—spore-light catching in the cracks across its armour, revealing faint traces of paint beneath rot. Ceremonial markings, once bright with pride.

  The Grove became still enough to make his ears ring.

  The Pariah’s head lifted—those hollow eyes burning with the weight of every moment it had guarded alone. It breathed in once more.

  Elias set his foot. The sword came up, tip lowered into a ready stance.

  The fight began.