Audrey wasn't supposed to be in the forest.
Twilight bled through the trees like fading firelight, and a thick mist curled around her boots as she followed the deer trail north of Briar Hollow. The branches whispered with wind, the ground soft beneath her feet, and yet her heart beat faster than the silence warranted.
Her father would worry. He always did.
But something had drawn her here.
Not a voice. Not exactly. More like a pull—ancient and low, humming beneath her skin, in her bones, in the rhythm of the roots themselves.
She paused beneath a towering ash tree. Its bark was cracked and old, twisted in ways that made it look like it had grown while watching the world suffer. The air shifted. Cold, sharp, and suddenly too still.
No birdsong. No rustling leaves. Just silence.
A second later, the earth split open.
Black tendrils burst from the soil, writhing like snakes, reaching for her. Audrey screamed as one coiled around her ankle and yanked her backward. She slammed into the ground, pain shooting through her ribs.
The tendrils swarmed toward her.
Then everything inside her went still.
Something ancient, something buried, woke up.
A surge of green light pulsed through her veins. Her hands flared with life—veins glowing, skin etched in flickering lines of emerald. From the ground around her, vines erupted. Thick, thorned, and alive. They twisted upward and slammed into the tendrils, tearing through them like they were smoke. The forest shook. The magic surged. She didn't know how she did it.
And then it was over.
The tendrils vanished into the soil. The glow faded from her hands. And the forest, slowly, breathed again.
Audrey staggered to her feet, staring down at her fingers, at the vines that had wrapped protectively around her legs and then slithered back into the ground.
Her breath caught.
"What… what am I?" she whispered.
The forest didn't answer. But something inside her already knew.
She was a Druid.
She stumbled home, her mind spinning, the last light of day swallowed by storm-colored clouds. Her father was waiting on the porch, arms crossed, his expression already creased with worry. But the moment he saw her face—pale, dirt-streaked, eyes too bright—his breath caught.
"What happened?" he asked, stepping forward.
Audrey looked down at her hands, still trembling, then up into his eyes. "I think… something inside me broke. Or woke up. I don't know."
He led her inside without a word, sat her down by the hearth, and listened as she explained everything—the tendrils, the vines, the green light. When she finished, the silence in the room felt heavier than the one in the woods.
Her father stood slowly, walked across the room, and opened the bottom drawer of the old cabinet. Audrey had never seen it open before.
He took out a small leather box, its surface etched with curling vines. Inside was a talisman—a polished wooden disk wrapped in delicate living green, vines that hadn't wilted despite their age.
He held it out to her.
"You knew," Audrey whispered. "Didn't you?"
Eland didn't meet her eyes. "I prayed it would skip you. That you'd live a simple life. One the world wouldn't notice."
Audrey reached for the talisman, and the vines twitched as her fingers brushed them, gently coiling around her wrist.
"It was your mother's," Eland said. "She left it with me the night she disappeared. Told me that if your eyes ever glowed like hers… to give it to you. And to let you go."
Her heart twisted. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because she didn't want you growing up with that weight. She wanted you to be free."
Eland pulled something else from the box—a folded parchment sealed in dark green wax, stamped with the shape of a raven.
"She said if the magic ever came for you, this would come too."
Audrey broke the seal with trembling fingers and read the letter inside.
Audrey Thornfield,
You are formally invited to attend Shadowhaven Academy,
where your gifts will be trained and your legacy protected.
The world is shifting. The forest remembers.
And the time has come for you to walk the path of the Druid.
Warden Thalor Veyne,
Head of the Shadow Council
Audrey stared at the letter.
"I'm not just imagining it," she murmured. "This is real. I'm a Druid."
Eland sat beside her, his hands clasped tight in his lap.
"You're more than that, Audrey," he said. "You're her daughter. And the world's been waiting for you longer than you know."
Audrey looked down at the talisman. The vines pulsed faintly with warmth.
And deep in her heart, something else pulsed with them: a sense of awakening. Of danger. And destiny.
The morning mist clung to the trees like cobwebs. Dew glistened on the grass, and the birdsong was soft, distant, as if even the forest knew Audrey was leaving.
Eland stood by the small garden gate, his arms folded tightly across his chest, a weathered satchel slung over his shoulder. Audrey stood a few paces away, her own pack cinched tight, the talisman tucked beneath her collar, warm against her heart.
Neither of them spoke at first.
The silence between them was familiar—not strained, just full. Full of the things they couldn't say without tears.
Eland finally exhaled, slow and heavy. "I always thought I'd have more time."
Audrey smiled faintly, though her throat ached. "So did I."
He looked at her—really looked—and she saw the storm behind his eyes, the worry he never let show when she was younger. The pain he carried alone.
"I should've told you more," he said. "About your mother. About who you are."
Audrey stepped forward and took his hand. "You did the best you could. You gave me peace. That's more than most get."
His hand tightened around hers.
"She loved you, you know. Fiercely. She didn't want you dragged into what she was trying to stop."
"She failed," Audrey said softly. "Didn't she?"
Eland didn't answer. He just pulled something from his coat—a small, hand-carved wooden ring, wrapped in tiny threads of ivy. It pulsed faintly in her palm when he placed it there.
"It was hers," he said. "She made it the night before she left. Said you'd need it, someday."
Audrey blinked hard. "Thank you."
He opened the gate for her, slowly. The path ahead led into the woods—beyond them, the road to Shadowhaven. Her first step away from everything she had ever known.
"Promise me one thing," Eland said, his voice quiet.
She turned.
"When the time comes… don't lose who you are. Even when the world tries to make you something else."
Audrey swallowed past the lump in her throat. "I won't."
And then she stepped through the gate.