The vision dissolved, and Clive and Lucia found themselves back in the present, gasping as if they'd been underwater. Nydalea stood before them, the glow of her markings slowly fading.

  "Now you understand." She turned away as she spoke. The growling in her voice was gone, replaced by something flat and hollow.

  “I’m sorry,” Clive apologized. He couldn't imagine what it must have been like to spend a century alone in this poisoned wasteland, knowing that everyone you'd ever loved was either dead or walking dead.

  “Save your words. Your pity won't bring them back. The dead are still dead.”

  A moment of silence stretched between them before Clive spoke again. “Our words may not, but our actions can.”

  "If we're going to help end this, tell us more about the Warden." Lucia said.

  Nydalea studied them both before letting out a sigh. "It controls everything within this place. The closer you get to the center, the stronger his influence becomes."

  “How do we get to him?” Clive asked.

  "Three rings stand between us and the heart. Here in the outer ring, the corruption is manageable. The middle ring is where the real danger starts. Risen patrol in organized packs there—twenty, sometimes thirty at a time. I've lost count of how many times they've driven me back."

  "And the inner ring? Lucia asked.

  "The mist is strongest there. The ground itself becomes your enemy. Every breath burn, every step risk poisoning. Even I can't survive there for long. And at the center of the groove, lies the stump of the great tree. The Warden makes his throne there, surrounded by the most powerful of his servants."

  Nydalea's markings pulsed once, as if responding to her memories. "I've seen it once, from a distance. The midnight blossoms grow in a circle around the stump, fed by whatever dark power flows through the roots."

  "Could we sneak past him?" Clive asked.

  "Impossible. Maybe in the outer rings, but once you reach the inner ring, the mist whispers to him. Every step you take on tainted ground, he feels. His army of Risen follow wherever he directs them."

  “Then we’ll just have to crush them all.”

  Nydalea gave him a sharp glare as she studied him. “Bold words from someone who needed my spear to finish a single Risen.”

  "We were caught by surprise." Clive painted a [Red Fireball I], launching it at a serpent that had been sliding toward Nydalea through the undergrowth. "Trust us."

  The fireball vaporized the serpent in a flash of crimson light. Nydalea jerked back in surprise but quickly regained her composure. She blinked twice before turning her gaze back to Clive.

  “Typical conceit of a light-seeker. Just don’t hold me back,” Nydalea muttered under her breathe. She shouldered her spear and stepped toward the mist. “Come, let us make haste.”

  Nydalea led them through a maze of fallen logs and stagnant pools, her movements fluid and silent. Clive tried to match her stealth, but his boots squelched in the mud with each step. Behind him, Lucia fared better, her lighter frame leaving minimal disturbance.

  "You move like a drunken bear," Nydalea hissed over her shoulder.

  "I'm trying," Clive whispered back, lifting his feet more carefully.

  "Try harder. Every sound you make attracts unwanted attention."

  Lucia leaned close to his ear. "Step where she steps. The ground's more solid there."

  Clive followed her advice, placing his feet in Nydalea's tracks. The squelching diminished to soft taps against the firmer ground, but it was too late.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  A wet splashing sound emerged from the undergrowth to their left. Three creatures that might once have been deer stepped into view, their antlers twisted into spirals of bone and their hide mottled with purple growths. Black fluid dripped from their mouths as they turned toward the group.

  Nydalea's spear found the first one's throat before it could charge. Lucia's throwing knife buried itself in the second creature's eye while Clive painted a quick [Blue Frost I], freezing the third's legs to the soggy ground. Nydalea finished it with a thrust through the ribs.

  The creatures collapsed without sound, leaving the party to continue their journey.

  "Stay close," Nydalea wiped her spear clean on a fallen log. "They hunt in larger packs deeper in."

  After another hundred yards, she raised her hand.

  "The boundary lies ahead," Nydalea whispered, raising her hand to halt their progress. “Beyond this, we enter the middle ring.”

  The change was visible even through the mist. Twenty feet ahead, the purple mist thickened, dense enough that it moved like slow water rather than vapor. Beyond it, the cypress trees had grown into shapes that no longer resembled trees. Their trunks spiraled upward in corkscrews and branches bent back on themselves to form cage-like structures.

  Nydalea stepped forward toward the boundary.

  As Nydalea approached, the mist rushed forward like a living thing, coiling around her legs and arms. The purple vapor pressed against her skin, seeping through the gaps in her clothing until it clung to her.

  "Traitorrrr." The whispers in the mist returned. "Why do you walk with the light-seekers?"

  More voices joined the first, overlapping until they became a chorus of accusation. "Embarrassment to the clan... You lead them to our sacred places... You should have died with us that day..."

  The mist thickened around Nydalea's throat. She swallowed hard, each breath requiring effort. Purple vapor wound around her wrists, jerking her arms back and forth.

  Clive raised his brush, but Nydalea's raised hand stopped him.

  "Stay back," she growled.

  "Nydalea." Another voice emerged from the mist, softer than the others. "My little one walks with those who set our sacred groves ablaze."

  Nydalea's ears twitched before flattening completely against her head.

  "She guides them to the great-tree's resting place," came another voice, this one carrying the rough cadence of an elder. "Betrays the secrets we died protecting."

  "They promised us sanctuary once," hissed a third. "Do you remember what their sanctuary looked like, little hunter?"

  The mist coiled around Nydalea's ankles. She took a step backward and bumped into Clive.

  "Mother?" Nydalea's voice cracked on the word. Nydalea's grip on her spear loosened. The weapon tilted in her hands as her shoulders sagged forward.

  "Come home, daughter. The hunt is over. You've carried this burden long enough."

  Clive steadied her with a hand on her shoulder. "Nydalea." His voice was quiet but firm. "Stay with us. Stay here."

  Nydalea drove her spear into the soggy ground and gripped the shaft with both hands. "I'm not... I can't..."

  "Look how tired you are," the voice continued, gentle as a lullaby. "A century of failure. A century of watching the corruption spread while you accomplished nothing. Rest now."

  Nydalea's knees buckled. She caught herself against the spear shaft, her claws scraping against the wood. Clive saw her jaw working, as if she were trying to form words but couldn't get them out.

  Then her spine straightened. Her grip tightened on the spear shaft.

  "Enough!" She drove the weapon into the soggy ground and let out a roar that made Clive's ears ring. Orange light erupted from her skin, pushing the purple mist back.

  She pulled the spear free and slammed it down again, the impact sending ripples through the stagnant water around their feet.

  "I'll join you when my work is finished." She spoke to the retreating mist, her voice steady now. "Wait for me. But not today."

  The voices grew agitated, their whispers becoming hisses of displeasure. "Foolish child... You only delay the inevitable... We will be here when you finally understand..."

  The mist pulled back reluctantly, like smoke being drawn up a chimney, leaving only the familiar purple haze drifting between the trees. The whispers faded to nothing, but the silence felt heavier than before, as if the swamp itself were holding its breath.

  "Are you ok?" Lucia stepped closer to Nydalea, one hand extended.

  “I’m fine,” Nydalea replied curtly, pulling her spear from the soggy ground with more force than necessary, sending water and mud flying from its tip.

  But Clive’s [Artist Eye’s] noticed the tremor in her fingers as she gripped the spear shaft, the way she avoided their eyes and kept glancing back at the dissipating mist. Purple vapor still clung to her arms like wet paint, seeping into the fabric of her clothing and leaving dark stains. Where the mist had touched her throat, her skin looked raw and irritated.

  “What was that?” he asked. "Those voices, they knew you."

  Nydalea shook off the residual purple vapor from her wrists with sharp, angry movements. "The souls of the dead. The Warden binds them to this place just as surely as he binds their bodies. As long as their corpses still stand, their souls will never rest."

  "Your mother," Lucia said quietly. "She's one of them?"

  Nydalea’s vertical pupils contracted to slits as she fixed Lucia with a cold stare, then she turned away and started walking. "Let’s go. We're wasting time."

  "Nydalea—"

  "Enough talk." Nydalea's grip tightened on her spear shaft until her knuckles went white. "Move."

  The dead call loudest to those who loved them most, for they know which hearts still beat in time with their silence. But the living must choose: to dance to that rhythm, or to drum their own.

  -Goddess of Stories and theatergoing