“I’m telling you, I saw her, guys! She was right behind me…surrounded by fire. She saved me…! Guys, please… You have to believe me…

  ….

  Lin…Lin! Have you drawn anything recently?! Can you show me, please?!”

  The grove was still. Only the faint pulse of the Wisp’s light kept the shadows at bay, its trembling glow painting Ariel’s face in soft, uncertain hues. The last echo of its voice still lingered between the trees — a single name that refused to fade.

  “Hlin…” Ariel whispered. The word felt strange on her tongue, as if her mouth had shaped it before, long ago. She spoke it again, softer. “Hlin.”

  The Wisp hovered before her, light flickering between white and pale gold. “The name remembered,” it murmured, voice uneven, “is never gone.”

  Ariel blinked slowly. Her throat was dry. “That’s… Norse mythology. I remember reading about her.” She rubbed her temples, trying to summon details from the clutter of her perfect memory. “A handmaiden of Frigg. The goddess of consolation and protection. A symbol of… mercy.”

  Her voice faltered on that last word. Mercy. She let the syllables roll over in her mind. They felt alien here, among the roots and glowing leaves. The memory was sharp — high school, a classroom that smelled faintly of old paper and chalk dust, a teacher speaking gently about compassion and protection. Ariel had thought the myths beautiful back then, but distant. Stories, not truth.

  Now one of those names had been spoken to her by a being made of light.

  Ariel looked up sharply. “You said it like you knew her.”

  The Wisp’s light dimmed to a frail shimmer. “The memory hums beneath the roots,” it said. “We remember warmth. Shelter. Two voices shaping the first dawn — one of earth, one of flame. But the words are gone.”

  She stood, her knees trembling slightly. “So she’s real? You’re telling me a goddess, an actual goddess, is involved in all this?”

  The Wisp twitched once, its light rippling outward in uncertain waves. “Real,” it repeated, as if testing the word. “Perhaps more real than what was lost…”

  Ariel began pacing slowly through the grove. “That doesn’t make sense. I died in a car crash. I woke up here. There’s no reason for some mythological god to have anything to do with me.” Her laugh was thin and humorless. “I’m a programmer. A rational person. Not a priestess. Not a hero.”

  The Wisp followed her, drifting like a cautious thought. “Reason fades where memory ends,” it said. “Belief builds the bridge.”

  Ariel stopped. “Belief?”

  “Names remembered shape the world,” the Wisp continued. “A name holds unimaginable power.”

  She exhaled sharply. “Memory isn’t faith.”

  The Wisp tilted as though listening. “Then why does remembering feel like prayer?”

  That question stilled her. She turned away, wrapping her arms around herself. The silence between them swelled, filled only by the faint hum of unseen life beneath the earth.

  Her eyes drifted to her hands. The same hands that had burned through illusion, that had reduced Tyna’s false world to ash. She flexed her fingers slowly. There was no pain now, but she could almost feel the phantom heat.

  “If Hlin is what you think she is,” she said quietly, “why would she tell me to burn?”

  The Wisp’s light pulsed, softer now, like a heartbeat. “Mercy takes many forms,” it whispered. “Sometimes warmth and love. Sometimes fire and retribution.”

  Ariel shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense. She’s supposed to protect, not destroy. She’s a goddess of grief, not vengeance.”

  The Wisp hovered closer. “Grief is not stillness. It moves. It breaks. It burns. You carry that fire.”

  The words made her shiver. The grove seemed darker now, the luminous vines no longer comforting but strange.

  Then, as she stared down at her hands, the faintest shimmer of light stirred beneath her skin — green and violet runes, curling like vines across her palms. The Wisp gasped softly, its glow deepening.

  “She left her hand upon you,” it said. “Mercy sealed in flame.”

  The symbols brightened for a breath, then faded, leaving a warmth that sank deep into her bones. It wasn’t painful, but it was heavy, like carrying a memory too sacred to speak. Ariel flexed her fingers and felt power ripple faintly through her. It frightened her.

  “She… marked me?” Ariel whispered.

  The Wisp floated closer, its voice almost reverent. “The bond remains. A promise, perhaps. Or a burden.”

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  Ariel swallowed. “I don’t want to be anyone’s vessel.”

  “No vessel,” the Wisp said gently. “Only flame that chooses where to burn.”

  Ariel lifted her gaze to the horizon. The sky above the canopy was a pale ocean of light, but distant clouds glowed red where corruption still spread. She didn’t know if the Wisp was right. She didn’t know if she believed any of it. But the name lingered in her thoughts, steady as a heartbeat: Hlin.

  Ariel clenched her hands into fists and whispered to the wind, “If she’s real… if she’s watching… then she's also watching over Holly. She has to be,” Ariel clenched her jaw, "That's enough for now."

  The Wisp’s glow brightened for a moment, humming with something like approval… or sorrow. Then it floated higher, circling her once before settling above her shoulder like a guardian flame.

  As twilight deepened across the floating isles, Ariel felt the faintest warmth against her skin from something vaster, older, and infinitely kind.

  A voice cut through the hush. Faint at first. Then clearer. “Ariel!”

  She turned sharply toward the sound. Down the path that wound back toward the village, figures moved between the trees. The Wisp’s light swung in that direction, and through the deepening dusk she saw them: Fornaskr’s broad frame, his silver hair catching what little light remained, and the small, masked shape of Shika darting beside him.

  Fornaskr carried her staff in one hand, its end wrapped with a strip of cloth like a banner. His expression, even at this distance, was urgent.

  “Ariel!” he called again, voice carrying over the grove. “Are you hurt?”

  She pushed herself to her feet, brushing soil from her knees. “I’m here!”

  The two reached her within moments. Shika bounded ahead and skidded to a stop beside her, chittering anxiously as she rose up on her hind legs, eyes fixed on Ariel. Fornaskr followed a breath later, his chest heaving from the climb.

  He handed Ariel her staff, his hands steady but his eyes searching her face. “You look pale,” he said. “And the air here… it feels heavy.”

  Ariel accepted the staff with a quiet nod, fingers closing around the worn wood. She looked from Fornaskr to the Wisp, then back again. “It’s over,” she said, though her voice trembled. “At least, for now.”

  They gathered around the glowing grove as she spoke, the flicker of the Wisp lighting their faces in gold and shadow. Ariel told them everything: the illusion, Tyna’s deceit, the fire that had torn through her like a second heartbeat. The words came haltingly at first, but once she began, she couldn’t stop. The memories poured out: the pain, the fury, the sound of the world collapsing around her.

  Fornaskr listened without interruption, his expression grave. Shika pressed close to Ariel’s leg, eyes wide, her tail swaying with nervous energy.

  When Ariel reached the end, when she said the name Hlin, the Wisp drifted between them, its light dimming to a steady glow. Fornaskr frowned. “That name,” he said quietly. “I’ve heard it only once, in the old prayers of the healers. They called upon her when the storms took our kin.”

  Ariel looked at him, uncertain. “Then she’s part of your world too?”

  Fornaskr hesitated. “No,” he said at last. “Older, perhaps. Or beyond it.” He met her eyes. “Whatever she is, she’s taken an interest in you, and that should give us both hope and caution.”

  Ariel lowered her gaze to her hands once more, the faint memory of runes still ghosting her skin. “Hope and caution,” she repeated softly. “Yeah. I can live with that.”

  The grove fell silent again. The wind stirred the trees, and somewhere far below, the river murmured like a sleeping memory.

  Ariel’s thoughts drifted. “Wait,” she said softly, her eyes narrowing. “Before all of this, before Tyna’s illusion, we came to speak with you, Wisp. About the next island.”

  The Wisp turned toward her, its light faintly rippling. “Yes,” it said, “the sea below. The island that moves.”

  Ariel nodded. “It isn’t just sea. It’s the whole island: nothing but water. We didn’t have any way to cross.” She tightened her grip on her staff. “I was hoping you might have some kind of advice before we tried again.”

  Before the Wisp could answer, Fornaskr’s voice cut through. “Strangely enough, that issue no longer plagues us.” His tone carried something between disbelief and awe. “When Shika and I searched for you, I saw it. The island has changed.”

  Ariel turned toward him. “Changed? How?”

  “The water’s gone,” he said. “It’s solid now, stone and sand, rising high. And on it…” He paused, his gaze distant as though still seeing the sight. “Ruins. Towers half-sunken in the ground. A city, maybe. Older than anything I’ve seen.”

  Ariel stared at him, her mind catching up with his words. “That’s impossible,” she said slowly. “We were just there. It was all ocean.”

  Fornaskr nodded. “It was. Until now.”

  Ariel’s pulse quickened. She thought back to the illusions Tyna had spun, to the fragile veil of false sky and false memories she’d burned away. The timing was too close to ignore. “If Tyna’s illusions were as vast as I think they were,” she murmured, “then maybe she wasn’t just trying to trap Holly and me. Maybe she was hiding that entire island.”

  The Wisp flickered, its light growing brighter for an instant. “The shroud unmade,” it said. “Her threads burned away with your flame.”

  Ariel nodded, realization settling over her like mist. “Then the fight must have drained her,” she said. “The illusion collapsed when she did. That means she can’t hide forever.”

  Fornaskr’s expression hardened. “If the city is revealed, then it’s waiting for us. Whatever sleeps there… it’s awake now.”

  Shika chirped nervously, pressing closer to Ariel’s leg.

  Ariel looked between them, then to the Wisp. “We should go,” she said. “If that city was hidden, there’s a reason. We need to see it with our own eyes.”

  The Wisp drifted closer, its glow steady once more. “The path is open,” it said. “But tread softly. What is revealed remembers it was once forgotten.”

  Ariel met Fornaskr’s gaze and nodded. Together, they turned toward the path leading down from the grove. Shika bounded ahead, her tail flicking through the golden light, while the Wisp trailed just behind them like a pale lantern.

  Before stepping beyond the grove’s edge, Ariel lifted one hand and reached toward the nearest tree. The Wisp paused, hovering silently as Ariel whispered a word under her breath. From the roots, a slender vine answered, coiling upward, winding gently around her arm. It shimmered faintly with green light, pulsing in rhythm with her heartbeat. The touch was cool and alive, grounding her in the present.

  She smiled faintly, the tension easing from her shoulders. “Still with me,” she murmured, giving the vine a small squeeze before letting it slip free into the soil once more.

  Only then did she turn to follow Fornaskr and Shika down the path.