They stopped when the forest opened slightly.
Not a clearing—just a place where the trees thinned enough for light to touch the ground.
"We'll rest here," Lyren said. "Only for a bit."
Aerin nodded gratefully. His legs ached, and his head still felt heavy from everything that had happened earlier.
He sat down on a fallen log and exhaled.
"I hate this," he muttered.
Lyren glanced at him. "What?"
"Feeling like something's wrong with me," Aerin said. "And not knowing what."
Lyren didn't answer.
Aerin leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "I just want to be normal. Even a little."
He closed his eyes.
He didn't try to gather mana.
Didn't focus.
Didn't think about magic at all.
He just breathed.
The forest responded.
Lyren felt it first.
The air tightened—subtle, immediate, like a thread being pulled too hard. The sound of the forest dipped unnaturally low, as if everything had gone silent a heartbeat too early.
"Aerin," Lyren said sharply. "Open your eyes."
Too late.
A pulse rippled outward.
Not explosive.
Expanding.
The ground shuddered beneath their feet. Leaves lifted into the air, frozen for a fraction of a second before being hurled outward in every direction.
Aerin gasped as pressure crushed down on his chest.
"What—?"
Trees bent.
Not snapped—**bowed**, their trunks creaking under invisible weight. The air glowed faintly, warped, like heat rising from stone.
"Aerin!" Lyren shouted, rushing forward.
Aerin dropped to one knee, hands digging into the dirt. His heart hammered wildly.
"I'm not doing this!" he yelled. "I swear!"
"I know!" Lyren grabbed his shoulder. "Stop thinking—just stop!"
"I'm not thinking!" Aerin cried.
That was the problem.
The pressure intensified.
Far away, something screamed—not in pain, but alarm.
Monsters.
High-tier ones.
Lyren felt it then: the amplification.
Whatever the forest had been *listening* for, Aerin had just spoken it without words.
"Listen to me," Lyren said, forcing his voice steady. "Focus on me. Not the forest. Not yourself. Me."
Aerin squeezed his eyes shut, breath ragged. "I—I can't—"
"Aerin!"
He looked up.
Lyren was right there. Solid. Real. Unmoving.
Aerin clung to that.
The pressure snapped inward.
The glow vanished.
The forest exhaled.
Trees slowly straightened. Leaves drifted to the ground. The silence returned—thick, shaken, but intact.
Aerin collapsed forward, gasping.
Lyren caught him before he hit the ground.
Neither spoke.
For a long moment, the forest did not move.
Then—
Something deep within it shifted.
Not closer.
Not farther.
Aware.
Lyren tightened his grip on Aerin.
"…We can't let that happen again," he said quietly.
Aerin didn't answer.
He was shaking.
And somewhere far beyond sight, something ancient smiled—not with malice…
…but recognition.