Sonder did not linger long.
She rose. The river stretched before her, dark and vast, but water had never frightened her.
Back in Simmeria, she had swum mountain streams, plunging into water like ice. Compared to that, this was nothing.
Without another thought, she waded in.
The current seized her legs at once, cold and heavy, but she held steady.
Midway across, the river turned against her. The current shifted, swirling deep, tugging her sideways.
She fought it, teeth clenched. With a burst of strength, she forced herself onward, breaking the surface with a gasp. The far bank was close now, so close she could see the reeds swaying, the black trees looming beyond them.
At last her hand struck mud, and she dragged herself onto the shore.
For a moment she lay there, chest heaving, drenched to the bone. The taste of bitter river salt lingered on her tongue.
Her clothes clung heavy with water, but she wrung out her sleeves and hair and rose again.
The treeline loomed ahead, a wall of black bark.
She stepped into its shade.
At once the air turned cooler, thick with the smell of rot.
She picked her way between the trunks and the roots that clawed up from the earth.
At first, it was only the silence that unsettled her. No birdsong. No insect drone. Not even the creak of branches. Only her own slow breath, and the squelch of her soaked boots.
But soon the silence broke.
A sound behind her, like a footstep. Then another, pacing hers.
She spun, ready to face it, but the forest stood empty.
She pressed on faster. The sound followed. Sometimes close, sometimes distant. Always there.
She tried not to think about it. She had been in dark forests before.
The trees thickened, their branches weaving so tightly overhead that daylight vanished.
She lit a spark in her palm.
It was no feeble glow, but a bright flame that cast a strong light.
Golden fire scattered across bark and stone. The trees seemed to recoil, each gnarled trunk twisting in the glow, their shadows curling back into the black.
And then, ahead, she saw it.
Through the dense undergrowth, the forest thinned into a clearing.
Sonder pushed through the last of the branches, and there it was.
The House of Lustre.
It rose before her like the skeleton of a giant, its once-bright walls dulled to gray and cracked stone.
What had once been a grand estate now lay broken by neglect. Roof tiles lay shattered across the earth, choked with weeds. Windows gaped open and empty, their glass long since gone.
Yet beneath the decay, its shape still spoke of splendor. Arched colonnades swept wide from the central spire, elegant even in ruin. Carved murals lingered along the walls, their edges chipped but still alive with faint lines of artistry.
Sonder stood at the edge of the clearing, her flame flickering in the windless air.