The forest did not welcome travelers. Its trees leaned inward, crooked and twisted, as if trying to close the path that cut through their roots. The wind carried whispers no one could quite understand, words that clung to the back of the mind like a half-forgotten dream.
It was there, at the edge of a crumbling shrine, that the lantern first appeared. No flame burned within it—only a pale shimmer, as though moonlight had been trapped inside glass. The hand that held it was slender, gloved in worn leather stitched with strange, looping sigils.
Elira Duskbane stepped into the light of the half-ruined shrine.
Her cloak dragged the scent of rain and ash, its hem lined with scraps of faded parchment, old maps sewn together into a patchwork mantle. Beneath the hood, her eyes caught the dim glow—sometimes grey, sometimes violet, never the same shade twice.
"You shouldn't be here," she said, her voice low, carrying a sharpness that made the whispers of the forest fall silent for a breath. "The Gate doesn't open for the curious. It opens for the damned."
The words should have sounded like a warning. Instead, they carried the weight of someone who had already seen what lay beyond, and who bore the scars of it still.
She lowered the lantern, and the glow shifted. For the briefest moment, a doorway shimmered in the air behind her—tall, narrow, and rippling as if made of smoke. Then it was gone.
Elira's lips twisted into something that was not quite a smile. "If you want to keep walking, you'll need me. But don't mistake me for your savior. I've lost enough in that place to know better."
And with that, she turned her back to the shrine, the whispering light guiding her steps down the darkened path.