The forest changed the instant Jamie ran.
Her Anti-Flow flared without restraint, ripping free of the careful leash she usually kept it on. Cold tore outward in jagged waves, frost crawling across bark and stone alike, the air snapping sharp enough to sting her lungs. She vaulted a fallen trunk, boots skidding as ice bloomed beneath her feet, heart hammering in a way she refused to call fear.
Running meant noise.
Noise meant attention.
Good.
If someone was following them, she'd rather drag them into the open than let them sit at her back like a knife waiting to slide in.
Behind her, the forest answered.
Not beasts.
The beasts were messy. Wild. Their Flow spilled everywhere—confused, hungry, half-asleep. This presence was clean, focused. Heavy in a way that pressed against her spine and made her shoulders itch.
'A Human, great,' she thought grimly.
'Who is it though, I don't recognise it.'
She cut left hard, skidding through a spray of snow, spun on her heel, and slammed a boot into the ground.
"I know you're there!" she shouted.
Frost rippled outward in a low ring, freezing leaves mid-fall, locking the ground into glassy white. Her breath came out in sharp plumes as she scanned the trees, eyes burning, senses stretched thin.
The Iron Forest loomed close now. Too close. The metallic trees warped light strangely, their bark threaded with dull mineral veins that caught her frost and refracted it into cold blue glimmers.
Then he stepped out.
Jamie's stomach dropped.
He was tall. Broad. Built like someone who'd spent most of his life braced against impact. His coat was old but well-kept, leather scarred and mended instead of replaced. The sword at his hip wasn't decorative—it sat at the exact angle of something drawn a thousand times.
And on the left side of his neck—
Her eyes locked onto the tattoo before she could stop them.
A blue rose. Pierced clean through by a sword.
Her breath hitched.
'He doesn't look like a flower lover. Anyway who is he and why is he looking at me like I stole his cheese and tomato sandwich? '
"So," the man said, voice low and rough like it'd been scraped raw by years of shouting over steel.
"It really is you."
Jamie frowned.
"Uh, do I know you?"
His mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. "No, no you don't. But I know exactly who you are, Prima Donna."
"Pricy salsa? Whats that, food? It it good."
The man chuckled.
"No its not food. It's a title and don't worry, soon you won't feel the need to know. or anything else in fact..."
He took a step forward.
The ground creaked under his weight—not from mass, but from pressure. From Flow compressing muscle and bone until the air itself seemed to strain around him.
Her instincts screamed.
"You should stop following kids around," she said laughing nervously, frost thickening around her ankles.
"It's creepy. I'll tell my papa about this."
"I won't. And I'll tell your papa about this too. " he replied simply.
He met her eyes, and something ugly stirred there—old, deep, and personal.
"It pains me, really. I know you have nothing to do with it," he continued. "Seeds were sown before you were even concieved."
Jamie swallowed, taking a step back.
"I still don't know what you're talking about."
He laughed quietly. There was no humor in it. "That's the cruelest part. Blood carries guilt, your blood unfortunately."
The words hit harder than any strike.
Her jaw tightened.
'Oh. Oh, I hate you already.'
She shifted her stance lower, weight balanced, Anti-Flow coiling hot and violent beneath her skin.
"…You're strong," she muttered, feeling his Trait press outward like a wall.
"Like my dad."
His eyes flickered at that.
"Run," he said.
She did.
Jamie slammed her foot down and released her First Resonant.
Cold detonated.
Ice burst outward in jagged arcs, spears forming midair and racing toward him from every direction. The temperature plummeted so fast her eyelashes frosted over, breath crystallizing as it left her mouth.
For half a heartbeat, she thought it might work.
Then he moved.
He didn't dodge. Didn't block.
He walked through it.
Ice shattered against reinforced muscle and Flow-hardened skin, fragments exploding uselessly as he closed the distance in terrifying strides. His hand closed around her arm—
—and she was airborne.
The world spun. Snow and sky swapped places violently before she slammed into the ground, breath punching out of her lungs as she skidded through frozen leaves.
Pain flared hot and sharp.
She rolled instinctively, barely avoiding the crunch of his boot where her head had been a moment earlier.
"Get up," he said.
She did.
"You people take everything," he continued, advancing steadily.
"Honor. Name. Purpose. The leader told us not to engage but I saw you and the blonde oy leave the city so I followed you thinking you would lead me to that old Fuck. But I can't hold my boiling blood back any longer. "
"I don't even know you!" she snapped, frost creeping along her knuckles as she formed another attack.
He nodded once. "Regretful, but this grudge must be paid in blood."
She turned and ran again.
He caught her in seconds.
His hand brushed her shoulder—
—and the forest roared.
Flow surged violently nearby. Not one presence.
Three.
Jamie skidded to a halt, heart slamming against her ribs as massive shapes burst from between the iron-veined trees.
Apex Diredeer, leaders of the herd.
Wolf-like bodies with elongated frames, antlers branching sharp and crystalline, Flow condensed so densely around them it bent the air. Their eyes burned pale gold, intelligence sharp and predatory. You see, Diredeer were a matriarchy, the female chose the strongest male to mate with at the end of the hibernation period. This made this current scenarios bad for anything in their way because first there was only one female and she was agitated for having her ovulation phase which took place during hibernation interupted, causing her to lash out at any and everything. The males were even more agitated because at this stage it didn't matter who took out who, with the matriarch irritated none of them would get to copulate.
"Oh no," Jamie whispered. "No no no—"
The man snarled and braced.
The first Diredeer slammed into him like a living avalanche.
He planted his feet and caught it.
The ground cratered beneath them as he roared, muscles bulging impossibly as he activated his Trait fully—'The Strength' pouring through him in raw, brutal force. He shoved the beast aside, antlers screeching as one snapped clean off in his grip.
The second struck from the side.
The third howled—and the forest answered.
Their abilities unfolded in terrifying harmony. Apex beast like humans possed more abilities the more they Evolved as demonstarted by these three.
One distorted gravity around its charge, making its mass feel tenfold heavier on impact.
Another split into afterimages mid-lunge, confusing perception as frozen phantoms struck from impossible angles.
The third let out a keening cry that vibrated through bone, disrupting muscle control and timing.
The knight fought like a legend.
He broke antlers. Crushed jaws. Drove a blade deep into Flow-hardened flesh.
But three Apex beasts were not meant to be faced alone.
Jamie backed away slowly, chest tight, eyes burning as the fight tore the forest apart.
Hunters' signals flared closer.
Too close.
Her hand suddenly closed around something warm.
"Jamie."
She spun—
Elias stood beside her.
Pale. Focused. Collected in the way he always was when things went bad.
"How—" she started.
"No time," he said, already pulling her toward the Iron Forest's edge.
They ran.
Though they didn'tknow it, they ran past trees marked with talismans. The etched symbols buried in bark flashed once and disappeared again as they crossed the threshold.
The world folded.
The forest blurred, sound warping, light bending until everything stretched thin—
—and then snapped back into place.
Behind them, the knight roared in fury as the Diredeer closed in again.
Ahead, the Forest swallowed them whole.
Hunters' signals surged… then scattered.
Jamie didn't stop running until her legs burned and her breath came ragged.
When she finally did, she leaned forward, hands on her knees, laughing shakily.
"…Okay," she said. "That was officially terrible."
Elias didn't answer right away but he did give her a side eye.
She glanced at him.
"…You good?"
"Oh you asking me if I'm good?"
"You don't have to be such a girl about it."
Elias restrained the urge to strangle her. It was then that he noticed the surraounding area. They were not in the Iron Forest or even a regular forest, it seemed to be a snow covered clearing surrounded at all sides by a wall of trees. In the midst of the clearing was a simple wooden shack, smoking bellowing out of its chimney.
"See, I told you we'd find him." Jamie said with a smirk, tapping Elias on the chest with her fist. He sighed and the two made their way towards the hut.
"Who was that guy anyway?"
"Dunno, but next time?"
"Next time?"
She clenched her fist, frost curling eagerly around it.
"I'm hitting first."
Elias sighed again.
'She wants a next time...'