Dio didn’t answer right away. He let his eyes wander across the droplet-shaped bushes around them, watched the wind pass through their thin leaves.

  “Maybe both,” he finally said. “But I think a lot of that fog’s cleared now. Since the sun came. Daw feels clearer to me. And the people too. Lot, Reab, Yorm, Wes… I think of them as friends. But with you - and maybe Des - I feel something deeper, something more meaningful even.”

  “Yeah… But Des still didn’t come,” Brela said, and her smile faltered. “I don’t know why. There’s something about him. I can’t explain it well. But I want to know him better. I want to do things with him, go places, learn what he’s thinking. But every time I ask, he turns me down. You saw it earlier…”

  She drummed her fingers against the log, restless again.

  “Do you want to spend more time with him?” Dio asked.

  She turned red, just slightly, but enough that he noticed.

  “I think so. Yeah,” Brela said finally, and turned to biting her nails.

  “Did you tell him that?”

  “I mean-” she huffed, her voice rising, “I asked him to come with us, didn’t I?”

  Dio burst into laughter.

  “Brela, that’s not the same thing,” he said, shaking his head. “If you ask him whether he wants to go into the forest with you, sure, that could be taken as an invitation to spend more time. But also... it might not be. It’s too vague. You should ask him more directly.”

  She looked even more uncertain now, plucking one of the flowers from her hair and twirling it between her fingers. After a few seconds, she flicked it away.

  “No. That would feel too forward,” she muttered, looking down at her sandals.

  “Well, then there’s not much more I can suggest. I can’t ask him for you. I mean... I could, but it wouldn’t be right. You know that...”

  “Yeah,” she said, and stomped her foot with mock frustration.

  As she smirked at him, Dio could see her eyes glistening. Still, she laid her arm on his shoulder again, a broad, brave smile spreading across her face.

  “You’re right. We’ve got eternity ahead of us, after all! I’ll find the courage! Sooner or later!”

  Dio gave a small nod and leaned back. Sunlight pierced through the canopy above in soft golden strands, and once more he was reminded of Ray's hair flowing around her face...

  As he ran his fingers over the tree trunk beneath him, the texture struck him - it was dry, gnarled, and uneven, the bark’s ridges winding like a hidden map. He traced the shapes, slowly, breathing in the light that filtered through the leaves above.

  Then he felt it.

  At first, it was just a different texture - fine hairs beneath his touch. But before his brain could register the shift, a searing pain lanced through his finger. With a sharp cry, Dio recoiled, falling backwards onto the mossy forest floor. The impact barely registered over the blaze in his hand. His vision blurred, and for a moment, the Dream felt distant, as though he was about to leave...

  Somewhere through the haze, he heard Brela scream. He barely registred how she sprang to her feet and kicked at something with a sharp thud. There was a skittering, a hiss... and something clattered away into the underbrush. A warped lump of bark, writhing with small antennae and spindly insect-like limbs. But Dio couldn’t focus on any of it.

  The pain was spreading, crawling up his arm like searing coal beneath his skin. He gritted his teeth and groaned, clutching his wrist as the pain flared again. More and more the Dream faded and in between all impressiosn that somehow managed to push through to him, there were blind spots he could not see, could not feel, could not...

  Terror flooded his world, dulling his mind even more; a terror that made him want to run, escape, flee, just away from the abyssal nothingness that came closer and closer, drowning all he was. And amongst all that, there was an urge, something different.

  Fascination. Wonder.

  What is in there... What is... beyond? Is this... waking up...?

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  Now, the blindness felt like a challenge and even though there was fear and panic, he needed to explore this unknown beneath the Dream, the same way he needed to...

  A sudden surge of coolness pulled him back into the world around him and made the nothingness fade. Wetness, calming and thick, spread across his wounded finger. The pain dulled so quickly it stole his breath. Gasping, Dio closed his eyes, tried to relax. When he opened them again, his face streaked with sweat and damp earth, he saw Brela crouched over him, her hands slick with a greenish, glimmering salve that slowly dripped to the ground in thick trails.

  She applied her paste...

  Still shaking, Dio forced himself to sit up. The fog in his head was lifting. He looked up at her and took in the pale fear on her features.

  “What the hell was that?” he asked, his voice hoarse, his breath still shallow.

  Brela didn’t answer immediately. Her eyes were sweeping the forest floor around them, scanning the shadows beneath the roots and leaves.

  “I don’t know. I think… I think it was something new,” she said at last.

  Her voice was unusually small, trembling in a way he hadn’t heard before and now tears ran down her cheeks.

  Dio straightened carefully. She offered him her hand, and with surprising strength, pulled him back to his feet. He brushed at the dirt and leaf litter clinging to his clothes, but his eyes, like hers, kept drifting to the ground. To the swaying moss and the warped roots that twisted across it. Then... movement.

  Without thinking, he extended his arm slightly in front of her and pointed toward a tree. There, halfway up the bark, a creature sat. It was pulling itself upward with jittery, uneven motions. Dio blinked hard, trying to make sense of it.

  It didn’t look like an animal. Not entirely. More like a living fragment of tree bark, one that shimmered slightly as it adjusted its color to match the trunk it climbed. It hissed again and froze.

  “It’s afraid,” Brela whispered beside him.

  “Yeah. Probably. I must’ve startled it,” Dio muttered. “Still… whatever it did, it hurt.”

  “I think it bit you.” Brela gently took his outstretched hand, studying it with care. “There are tiny punctures in your skin. But they’re already starting to fade.”

  Dio carefully slipped out of her grasp and held his finger up to his face. The wound was indeed disappearing, an odd, circular mark, as if made from dozens of tiny punctures arranged in a ring.

  “Let’s turn back,” Brela suddenly said. Her voice was calm, but her eyes still lingered on his injury.

  “If you think so. But we could also-”

  “No. It’s too dangerous. What if it-”

  “But it didn’t, Brela.”

  “Still. I’ve had enough for today.”

  Without waiting for a response, she gently but firmly guided him back in the direction they had come. Her touch was light, but there was no mistaking the resolve behind it.

  “Please,” she added under her breath.

  Dio gave a reluctant nod, and they began retracing their steps. The forest around them seemed quieter now and neither of them spoke. Dio’s thoughts moved sluggishly, and though he wanted to say something, the shock still clung to his bones.

  “What do you think it was?” he asked eventually. “Not the creature... That burning! It felt like someone set my arm on fire. And there was something more, far away but everywhere... And it was also nothing...”

  He glanced at Brela, checking whether she was ready to talk.

  “Poison, probably. The effects of poison,” she said after another short silence.

  “Yeah. Maybe. Are there many poisonous animals around here?”

  “No. None that I know of. A few plants that’ll give you a rash if you touch them, but nothing serious.”

  “Hm.”

  Again, silence stretched between them.

  “You said this was something new...?” Dio tried once more.

  They were just passing the tree with the lazapes, though the strange creatures had apparently pulled themselves back up into the canopy. Near them, the blossoms of the noblecups shimmered faintly in the last golden light of day.

  Brela stopped and looked up at them for a moment, then answered.

  “Yes. It is as I said, when people arrive, new things appear in the Dream. Usually, it’s nothing to worry about. And that creature wasn’t evil either, we just startled it. I think? Or maybe it was territorial...? Still…” She hesitated, then exhaled slowly. “Dio, I’ve never had a journey through this forest turn dangerous. Sure, others have come back with scratches. Even awakenings have happened, after hunts or accidents. But me? I’ve never faced a creature that wanted to hurt me. Never stumbled into anything I couldn’t walk away from. I always thought of the forest as peaceful. Maybe that was na?ve. Or maybe it really is changing.”

  She gave a short laugh, but there was a tremor in it that didn’t quite resolve.

  “Fascinating,” Dio said with a crooked grin, though inside he was still trembling as well.

  It felt like something had sunk deep into him. Something cold, slow, and not yet done unfolding.

  “I just hope your paste healed me completely. I’d rather not find out I’ve been infected with something strange. But I seem okay for now. Really, that was impressively quick thinking,” he said, offering a grateful smile and nodding toward her.

  “Infected? What’s that?” she asked and furrowed her brows.

  He blinked. “No idea. Probably just something that slipped out… Probably just a saying?”

  For a moment, Brela’s smile faltered once more. It was the briefest flicker, but Dio noticed. Then she shrugged, slipped an arm around his shoulders, and gently nudged him onward. There was a lightness to her movements, a bounce in her step, but it didn’t reach her eyes for the first time.

  “Probably... And you’re welcome! I figured I’d better not let you awaken. Ray would be furious with me, I imagine,” she said with a teasing lilt.

  But when Dio glanced sideways at her, he could see that her mind wasn’t on the path ahead. It wasn’t even in the forest anymore. Her thoughts obviously kept looping back to something else, something she couldn’t shake, and now and then it sent a faint shiver through her.

  He slipped an arm around her in return and she didn’t resist.

  By the time they reached the outskirts of Daw, she had composed herself again. Her stride had steadied. She grabbed Dio by the hand and pulled him toward Des, all radiant energy and dramatic gestures returned, launching into the story of their strange encounter as though nothing had ever been wrong...