Elowen ran.
Ashen beside her, silent as wind. Behind them, the forest screamed.
The Mask's Hunters did not speak. They did not stumble. They did not tire.
They moved like shadow, swift and elegant, their bone masks gleaming under the pale sky. Wherever their feet touched the earth, the trees withered. Roots cracked. Flowers shriveled.
The Stillwoods recoiled from them.
"Faster!" Ashen hissed. "They'll trap us if we slow!"
Elowen's lungs burned. Her heart thundered in her chest. The magic in her hands pulsed wildly — not yet controlled, not yet shaped — but it was alive.
Something inside her had awakened. Something waiting to burn.
They ducked under low branches, leapt over tangled roots. A thorny grove rose ahead, thick as a wall.
"In here," Ashen said. "Now!"
He threw his hand forward — and the thorns parted.
Just wide enough for them to slip inside.
Elowen gasped, stumbling through. As soon as she crossed, the thorns knit back together, sealing the way like a mouth snapping shut.
Darkness fell around them.
Only the soft hum of old magic remained.
They were inside a hidden glade, veiled in silence. Pale blue flowers glowed faintly across the ground. A single tree stood in the center — twisted and tall, its bark covered in runes that shifted as if breathing.
Elowen touched one of the flowers. It trembled.
"What is this place?" she asked.
Ashen answered quietly:
"The Grove of Forgotten Fire.
It hides the ones who still remember pain."
Outside the thorn wall, the Hunters circled.
But they could not enter.
They hissed and whispered, claws scraping the edges of the bramble, but something ancient held them back.
The Stillwoods were not finished with Elowen.
Not yet.
As she sat beside the glowing flowers, the pain in her hands deepened.
Her palms bled light.
The mark — the one from the tree — began to change.
It spread, curling up her arms like vines of silver fire.
Elowen bit back a cry.
Ashen knelt beside her. "Don't fight it."
"It hurts," she gasped.
"I know. But this is how your magic grows. It remembers everything."
The light blazed — and suddenly, her mind was not in the grove.
She was elsewhere.
She stood in a ruined hall — stone shattered, air heavy with ash. People screamed around her. Soldiers fought against beasts made of gold and bone.
And on the high steps above them all…
A girl stood.
Wearing a silver crown.
Wearing Elowen's face.
The girl turned — her eyes burning red — and whispered:
"You will wear the thorn.
You will bleed the forest.
You will break the god."
Elowen screamed.
She returned to the glade, falling to her knees. Sweat poured down her face. Her veins still glowed faintly beneath her skin.
Ashen caught her before she hit the ground.
"What… was that?" she gasped.
"A memory," he said softly. "But not yours."
"Then whose?"
He hesitated.
"Maybe a version of you that never lived."
The grove hummed louder. The tree in the center began to pulse, its bark flashing with the same silver as Elowen's marks.
"It's calling to you," Ashen whispered.
Elowen approached the tree slowly.
The runes shimmered under her touch.
A door appeared — hidden in the bark — just wide enough to enter.
She stepped inside.
Darkness swallowed her.
But within that darkness, a voice echoed.
Not male. Not female. Something older.
Something ancient.
"Child of thorn and fire…
Why do you seek the name you were never meant to carry?"
Elowen stood tall.
"Because it was stolen.
And I want it back."
The voice was silent.
Then it said:
"Then you must carry the cost.
You must remember her."
"Who?"
"The first daughter."
Elowen's hands burst into silver flame.
Her eyes glowed with forest-light.
And behind her, the god stirred.