Keiser panted, his breath shallow, the back of his tunic clinging damp against his skin. Sweat trickled in steady lines down his temple and spine.
They had been walking through the forest for hours. He remembered clearly when they left the underground settlement. It had been just after lunch, the sun not even near its peak. Now, the light had shifted, threading through the canopy in fractured beams, each ray seeming to hunt him out, striking hot against his neck and shoulders as if the forest itself conspired to exhaust him.
He cast a glance at Lenko, who appeared far less troubled. The boy's hair clung damp to his brow, but he didn't complain, his satchel still bouncing against his side with every step. He even had the energy to pluck berries from the bushes they passed, popping some into his mouth, offering others to the princess, or most unnervingly feeding them to hares that darted out of the undergrowth.
Keiser's eyes narrowed each time. He had to check the creatures' eyes for a glint of red. A single shimmer in their irises would mean death---those were no harmless hares but beasts capable of splitting a man in half before he could draw breath.
The Forest of Sheol was not a place one forgot. He remembered all too well the countless times it had deceived him---innocent eyes, soft paws, or tiny wings disguising claws and fangs that could turn a simple subjugation into a desperate struggle for survival.
This place thrived on luring the careless. And Lenko, with his berries and smiles, seemed exactly the kind of fool Sheol wanted.
"Are we there yet?" Keiser panted, one sweaty, bandaged hand against a tree he nearly stumbled into, the other clamped over his side where the ache had burned itself into him for the past hour. His breaths came ragged, each one tasting of earth and sap.
The princess, striding several paces ahead, paused just enough to glance over her shoulder. Her eyes narrowed, sharp and cold as if she could cut him down without needing to unsheathe her sword.
Keiser gave a humorless laugh.
Of course.
She hadn't stopped looking at him that way ever since Lenko had spoken his innocent thought---that the ward was probably dispelled by now. Keiser had silenced the boy swiftly before the princess could seize on it, before her questions could dig deeper than Lenko ever intended. That single interruption had painted a target on his back.
To cover it, he had thrown himself into a barrage of questions at her expense.
"You said you didn't keep those poor folks trapped in that little underground hole, yet you also claim it was to keep them safe. If you didn't bind them, then why not let them leave? Why hold their freedom ransom under your care?"
The princess's jaw tightened, her fingers twitching near her hilt. Keiser could see it. The subtle tilt of her stance, the flare of her nostrils---the woman looked a heartbeat away from drawing steel across his throat again.
"I didn't keep them," she spat, her voice sharp as the edge she threatened. "It was their choice to stay. I told them what would happen if they left, and if they had the will to go, they could. But tell me---if they can even escape this forest alive in the first place."
Her sneer lingered like venom before she abruptly turned and strode faster, lengthening the gap between them as if distance could shield her from further questions.
"Since you're so fond of twisting my explanations," she snapped over her shoulder, voice rising above the forest hush, "and since everything I say spirals into your accusations, even though I've tried---tried---to make you understand… Ever since you release me free of that beast core's influence, you've doubted every word I've spoken!"
Her boots struck the earth in angry rhythm. Then, with a final lash of frustration, she barked, "Fine! We'll just take a look at that wretched ward with our own eyes--- since no one is listening to me!"
And that was how Lenko, by sheer dumb luck, managed to dodge her highness's interrogation---the kind that always came sharpened to the edge of her sword. Keiser glared at the boy's back as Lenko strolled past him, humming faintly under his breath as though they weren't neck-deep in peril.
How utterly oblivious.
Keiser dragged his eyes away from him and studied their surroundings. They had gone far deeper into the Forest of Sheol than he had intended, perhaps already crossing into the bounds of Sheol proper. The air itself seemed thicker here, weighted with something more primal.
Sheol. The very birthplace of the beasts.
Memories crept into his mind, unwelcome yet vivid.
Days---weeks---spent hunting, circling, searching for the source of it all.
Yet no one had ever found the root.
The beasts here were unlike the natural creatures of the world.
They did not breed, did not pass life from one to another. No---these things were born from what already existed, twisted into something else. Living beings, from the smallest vermin to the largest predator, could be warped into monsters.
Even the land itself was not safe, stone, soil, metal---he had once fought a golem whose very body was carved from the spine of a mountain.
But the worst were the corpses.
The bodies of the dead, rising with hunger in their rotted eyes. That was why, back then, they had learned to burn everything---man, beast, companions alike---until only ash remained.
Even so, the smell clung. Smoke and charred flesh, acrid and heavy. A stench that crawled into the back of your throat and never left, no matter how long you lived after.
"Whoa…"
Lenko's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. The boy had stopped, his gaze sweeping the trees with wide-eyed wonder. "No wonder it feels like we're going somewhere familiar."
Keiser finally lifted his head. He hadn't realized he'd been staring at the ground for so long. High above, the light broke unevenly through the tree crowns, splitting into shards of gold and shadow. For a fleeting moment it painted the forest like stained glass, eerie yet breathtaking.
The princess, usually composed and sure of herself, stood still with a bewildered look on her face as her eyes darted across the surroundings. It wasn't awe in her gaze---it was confusion.
"What? How?" the princess's voice cracked sharp, ragged with disbelief. "The ward… where's the ward? What is this?"
She lifted her hand, gesturing toward the thinning edge of the forest.
Beyond the dark wall of trees lay an opening. A clearing where the mist parted pale and thin. And there, unmistakable, stood the cabin. The rough outline of its timber walls. The shadow of the pitched roof. And beside it, in plain sight, the weathered barn---Muzio's barn, his hideaway.
Slowly, his eyes slid toward Lenko. The boy had halted too, staring at the sight ahead. But when his gaze flicked back---meeting Keiser's for the briefest heartbeat---something passed between them.
This guy.
At first Keiser had thought Lenko merely dense, the sort of harmless fool who survived by accident rather than skill. But maybe not. Maybe there was more calculation under that bumbling front than Keiser had credited.
Lenko had probably known the wards were dispelled the moment they left this place.
Keiser remembered.
The sigils etched on the livestock's hides, glowing faintly as the animals plodded after the wagon that carried them away from the barn. He remembered thinking how strange it was---that Lenko, of all people, had managed to summon a coachman, a wagon, in the middle of nowhere.
And yet, here they were.
A bird, perhaps. Sent ahead to fetch the wagon. Or maybe Lenko had done this before, knew the trade routes of this cursed borderland better than he let on.
This was Sheol's edge, after all---where mercenaries and adventurers came chasing coin and death in equal measure. A place where coachmen knew the risks and made their business dragging fools to the threshold of the forest and back again.
On a proper road, behind horse and wheel, the distance would have been brief. Manageable. Predictable.
But walking? Through the choking tangle of Sheol's woods, with its oppressive silence and unseen eyes pressing from the dark? Time stretched, bent. The journey warped into something endless.
And now, standing at the clearing's edge, Keiser felt his jaw tighten as the bitter realization gnawed through him. 'Yup,' he thought grimly, 'it was all Muzio's fault.'
The princess's face flushed red, her jaw tightening until the veins stood out at her temple. With a furious snarl, she swung her sword into the nearest trunk, carving through bark and leaving a jagged wound where the sigil once pulsed.
The mark, already faded, dispelled long before her blade could reach it, leaving only a shallow scratch.
"They put a ward here? Here? For what?" she spat, her voice sharp and incredulous. The edge of her sword bit into another tree, splinters flying as she hacked again and again. "Because they lived here? Who---what kind of crazy bastards---would do this!"
Each strike punctuated her fury, the iron of her sword ringing against dead wood. Her breath came fast, ragged.
Lenko and Keiser shared another long look.
Keiser's lip curled. He could already see where this was leading.
Of course she's angry. But she doesn't understand.
Because how could she? She'd only ever seen the ward from the outside, like everyone else. To them, it was nothing more than a baffling ward, one they couldn't cross or see through. It twisted paths, turning even the fiercest beasts aside, and had likely started this entire mess.
For Muzio and Lenko, who had lived on the other side of it. They probably had never realized the scale of the problem it had created---how it funneled the hungry things straight toward Hinnom.
And that problem had festered for over a year.
Lenko leaned slightly toward him, voice low, almost lost beneath the princess's hacking.
"Should we… tell her?"
Keiser snapped his head toward him, eyes wide.
"And risk our necks?"
Lenko's lips pressed thin, but he didn't argue. At least on this, they saw eye to eye.
Still, the mess couldn't be ignored. The princess's wrath was proof enough of that. And the capital---Keiser grimaced---he couldn't just walk away from the trouble Muzio had caused.
We'll need to clean this up first.
Three days.
He had only awake for three godsdamned days. Already the forest had its claws in him. Already Muzio's shadow lingered.
But Sheol never allowed peace. Not here.
Not with the ward gone.
The border was raw again, open. The forest could smell it. Even if the beasts had grown accustomed to the old diversion, even if they had turned back for a year, they would sense the change.
Prey called to predator.
He felt the truth of it in his gut a split second before it happened.
The princess had stormed toward the barn, slamming the doors open and raiding through broken timber when the air itself seemed to shudder.
A howl tore through the clearing.
Something hit her. Hard.
Her body was flung back like a ragdoll, crashing through the splintered frame of the barn and hurtling in their direction.
Keiser moved before he thought, something like instinct lighting his blood.
Fire licked across his veins, his body burning alive as mana roared to the surface. He cursed under his breath---he really should learn how to control this, bend it instead of letting it consume him---but there was no time.
Because from the black wall of trees behind the barn came the surge.
A flood of shadows with claws, with teeth, with eyes that gleamed in the half-light.
Beasts.
Dozens.
Pouring into the clearing.