Inside her cottage, Amriel changed quickly into her hunting leathers. The familiar scents of dried herbs and poultices filled the small space as Meeko watched from the bed, his massive body curled into a contented loaf.
"Come on, boy," she called, grabbing her collection satchel. "Let's beat the storm."
Meeko didn't budge. Just blinked at her, slow and unbothered.
Amriel paused, frowning. He never turned down a chance to hunt. She dropped the satchel and crossed to the bed, running her hand over the distinctive silver dapples on his head. "You feeling okay?"
Meeko leaned into her touch, eyes half-closing, but made no move to get up.
"That's not like you." She checked him over. No obvious injuries, his breathing steady. Just... content to stay put.
Meeko chirped softly and gently butted his head against her hand. His deep, rumbling purrs vibrated through the small, one room cottage.
"Are you sure you don't want to come then?"
The forest cat yawned, displaying impressive fangs before settling his chin on his paws with finality.
"Fine. But if something eats me, I expect you to avenge my death spectacularly."
Once more, Meeko's silver eyes blinked slowly up at her as his large, fluffy tail curved around his body like a blanket against the draft inside.
"I'll light a fire when I get home," she promised him, and, with one last glance at her companion, Amriel stepped back out under the darkening skies.
The iron ring at her throat pulsed with cold warning, but she quickly pushed the sensation aside. A boy was suffering. Everything else—prophecies, Power disasters, and near death experiences—would have to wait.
The Vhengal Forest welcomed her with earthy perfume that filled her senses, though the darkening sky above cast everything in muted grays and deep shadows. Ancient trees swayed in the crisp breeze, their new spring leaves whispering secrets that seemed more urgent now beneath the weight of gathering storm clouds. The ground beneath her boots was soft with moss and decaying leaves. The forest felt like a cathedral preparing for some solemn ritual, beautiful but somber.
Normally, she would have relished these walks. But today, purpose, and a coming storm, drove her forward.
The iron ring at her throat continued to pulse with a strange coolness as she walked deeper into the woods. It had been her father's—his last gift before marching off to war against the Fallen. When he'd returned, broken in body and spirit, he'd never asked for it back. And when death finally claimed him years later, she couldn't bear to bury it with him.
It was the one piece of the man he'd been before that she could keep. What would he have thought of all this?
'When stars fall from the heavens, and shadows stretch beyond the breaking dawn…the wanderers arrive.'
From the moment she'd looked down upon that damned tome, the words it contained had repeated themselves like a fever dream.
What did it all mean?
The Night of Fallen Stars—a night over two thousands years ago, when the very stars in the sky were said to have fallen to earth. If that's the "stars falling," then the prophecy isn't predicting the future, it's counting down events that have already begun.
And why did the prophecy feel so personal, as if it were reaching across time specifically for her?
Amriel drew a ragged breath, inhaling the damp scents of the forest air, willing it to clear her mind as it had countless times before. But this time, there were no answers, just endless questions swirling like dead leaves caught in a whirlwind.
She stepped over a fallen log, its surface carpeted in soft, feathery moss and miniature shelf fungi that ran up and along its side like steps for some tiny forest creature. The scent of decay and rebirth mingled in the air, triggering memories of her mother—Nythia's angular face and eyes the color of thunderclouds.
"Life and death are neighbors here," her mother had once said, crouched beside a similar log, slender fingers resting on the rough bark. "Remember that, Amriel. The forest doesn't recognize endings, only transitions."
Her mother had been as enigmatic as the forest itself, full of harsh lessons and cryptic warnings, yet possessing knowledge no one else seemed to have.
"If anyone might have known what this prophecy meant, it would have been her." The admission escaped as barely more than a whisper, half to herself, half to the trees that had watched her grow. Immediately, she wanted to take them back. Needing someone who had chosen to disappear felt like admitting to a weakness her mother would have scorned. Yet here she was, desperate for the very wisdom that had walked away with her.
Above, the first winds of the approaching storm stirred through the spring leaves with urgent whispers, and the trees responded with a sound like hushed reassurance—the way they had when she was small and her mother had left her in their company for hours on end.
The darkening sky pressed down like the weight of unanswered questions, but the trees stood firm around her—constant guardians bracing against whatever was coming.
Amriel paused where the path curved alongside a narrow stream that cut through the forest like a silver thread on velvet. Kneeling, she dipped her fingers into the cold current, watching ripples spread outward from her touch.
"This can't be real, can it?" she whispered, the question almost lost beneath the stream's gentle song.
Surely it was just a hallucination.
"Three nights without sleep might do that to a person."
Rising, she brushed damp soil from her knees and pressed forward, trying to focus on her task.
For over half an hour, she searched her usual places along the paths she knew but found nothing. Soon she stood motionless at a fork in the path, her worn leather boots sinking slightly into damp moss. To her right stretched more familiar trail, a ribbon of packed earth winding between dense underbrush. To her left, the northern path disappeared into the ancient heart of the Vhengal, where trees older than the kingdom itself reached skyward.
Through the restless canopy, she stared north toward where the mountains lay buried beneath the storm's advancing clouds. The approaching storm had swallowed them completely behind a wall of roiling gray, but she could see them anyway—those savage, jagged peaks. The iron ring at her throat flared cold, as if it too remembered those distant summits. She clutched it through her tunic, the metal icy against her palm.
A silvercrest jay called overhead, its harsh cry shattering her thoughts. Amriel flinched at the sound, her hand instinctively moving to the bone-handled knife at her hip.
The bird's call came again, more insistent, drawing her attention to where it perched on a branch along the northern path. Its dark, piercing eyes stared at her with uncanny focus before taking flight deeper into the forest's heart.
The northern path was rarely traveled for good reason. The closer it crept to those mountains, the more unsettling the stories became—whispers of travelers who vanished, strange shadows lingering where none should be.
Nythia had warned against venturing too far in that direction.
"The heart of the Vhengal has its own rules," her mother had said once, her eyes focused on those sharp, distant peaks. "Rules older than our understanding."
Yet something about the jay's call, about the strange pull of the northern trail, felt like a sign.
"Well, this is definitely a terrible idea," Amriel muttered, adjusting the worn leather strap of her satchel. "But the boy needs that Gentle Sleep, and terrible ideas are apparently my specialty."
She patted the knife at her hip, drew a deep breath, and turned left.
Immediately the northern path began to narrow, as though the forest itself was reaching inward, reluctant to allow passage. Brambles snagged at her leggings, and low-hanging branches forced her to duck repeatedly. The deeper she ventured, the more the forest seemed to change. The light took on a dusky quality, casting blue-gray shadows that seemed to shift when viewed directly. Birds fell silent. Even the ever-present insects quieted their chorus, leaving only the sound of her breathing and the occasional snap of twigs beneath her boots.
Tree trunks seemed to twist at impossible angles. Mushrooms grew in perfect circles that she carefully avoided. The air itself felt thicker, resistant to filling her lungs.
"Oh, this isn't ominous at all," she murmured.
Pushing away her unease, Amriel kept her eyes trained on the ground, scanning methodically for the distinctive blue-green leaves of Horissa Vharia. She recalled her mother's teachings about its preferred growing conditions—dappled light and rich soil, most often found around fallen trees.
Those lessons had been delivered in Balvic, the tongue of the western forest people. Just as hunting was taught in Myrragos, and healing in Vraycian.
The forest's growing darkness made it clear her time was running short. As much as the Vhengal felt a part of her, she did not wish to linger in these parts during a storm.
Frustration mounted with each empty clearing, each promising patch that yielded nothing but common ferns and mushrooms. The iron ring around her throat pulsed with a cold. Everything around her screamed for her to turn back, but the thought of the boy facing amputation without Gentle Sleep drove her onward. No child deserved such agony.
Then, in a small clearing where a gap in the canopy allowed dying sunlight to penetrate, she found it.
"Finally," she breathed, the tight lines of her face softening. "Horissa Vharia."
The plant's delicate, heart-shaped leaves gleamed with an almost metallic blue-green sheen, distinctive against the forest floor's muted palette. A cluster grew around a fallen oak—enough to make six or seven doses, more than enough for Mirna's patient.
She sank to her haunches beside the herb patch, cool dampness seeping through her leggings. Reaching into her pouch, she retrieved her cutting tools, fingers moving with practiced precision.
"Not too much," she reminded herself. "Take only what's needed, leave enough to thrive."
As she reached toward the first stem, her fingers paused midair.
A flash of black among the shadows beneath the fallen trunk caught her eye—black leaves sharp as arrowheads, veined with crimson that seemed to pulse in the dim light.
Recognition hit her like a physical blow, driving the air from her lungs. Her hand jerked back instinctively.
Khasta Vhar.
The name slithered through her thoughts like ice water through veins.
Even without her years of study, Amriel would have known this plant. Every child in the realm did. The sight of it called to mind her mother's gravest warning—the only time Nythia's voice had carried genuine fear rather than mere caution.
"If you ever see those red-veined leaves, you run, Amriel. You run and you don't look back."
The iron ring at her throat now burned with cold so intense it felt like fire against her skin.
A cold sweat broke across her body despite the forest's chill.
Wherever Khasta Vhar grows, an angel has fallen.
And there, growing alongside the very herb she had come to harvest, was proof that something terrible had happened in this forgotten corner of the Vhengal Forest.