Behind them, the outline of the stone wall rapidly blurred as the Blighted Wood's shadows closed in once more. A bone‑chilling sensation crawled up Raine's spine—far more pervasive than the malignant chill in those ruined halls. It felt as though countless eyes watched from every twisted trunk, every entwined vine, every thick canopy that blotted out the stars.
Karriion led the way, his stride steady but the knuckles clutching his hammer whitening with tension. Every so often he paused, crouching to examine the ground. The forest floor, carpeted in rich humus and fallen leaves, hardly held any tracks—but Karriion's keen Dwarven tracking instinct spotted subtle signs.
"Someone's following us," he murmured, tapping the hammer's haft against an otherwise ordinary patch of moss. "Here… and here. Someone has erased footsteps deliberately." His clan's tracking lore was legendary; no cunning quarry could easily evade them. "Professional work. They don't want us to know they're here."
Thalia brought up the rear, her complexion paler than ever before. She paid no heed to Karriion's findings, eyes closed as she reached out with her senses. "Not human," she said in a whisper tinged with tremor. "At least… not entirely." Her deep-set eyes opened, reflecting the woodland gloom. "A hatred… as cold as frost. It skulks nearby."
Raine's heart sank. Not flesh-and-blood, but brimstone‑cold spirits? His thoughts drifted to the broken tablets in that outpost—his ancestors' forbidden research, the deliberate erasures, and Thalia's warning of an "unspeakable scar." What had they disturbed? The tortured shades of star‑descendants who fought the Blight, only to be consumed or transformed?
Night fell like a black velvet curtain over the Blighted Wood. The last pale streak of twilight vanished beyond the canopy. The forest was plunged into darkness. Only the small ring of firelight from their camp drove back the suffocating blackness.
"Take watch in turns," Karriion said, drawing runic wards around their fire's perimeter. "I'll guard the first watch, Raine the second, Thalia the third." He regarded Thalia's ashen face. "You… can still manage?"
Thalia merely nodded and found a relatively clean stone to sit upon, leaning against a stout dead trunk as if to gain strength. Though she closed her eyes to rest, the twitch of her brow and the shiver of her fingertips betrayed her unease and exhaustion.
Raine sat beside the fire, cradling the still‑unfinished Star‑flame Blade. Even through its thick wrappings, he could sense the blade's faint warmth—and the power it held, bound to his own bloodline. Yet that power brought him no comfort. The feeling of unseen eyes' glare clung like a sticky web around their camp.
The fire crackled, sparks occasionally hissing into the darkness before vanishing. A deathly silence reigned—no insects chirped, no owls called.
Then a strange noise began. Faint…like branches rubbing together…or something heavy being dragged across the ground. Shh…shh…
Karriion's grip tightened on his hammer as he peered toward the sound's source in the gloom. All he saw were swaying shadows, like snarling beasts in silhouette. The noise ceased as if carried off by the breeze.
Moments later, an even stranger sound rose—much closer now, just beyond the firelight. A low, intermittent sobbing. Broken, despairing, impossible to tell whether it came from man or beast.
Raine's hair stood on end. He clutched his sword-hilt, eyes darting into the blackness that swallowed even the firelight's edge.
"Don't let it confuse you," Karriion barked, striving for calm. "All manner of abomination lurks here—could just be a creature mimicking cries."
But the sobbing deepened, growing hauntingly clear, laced with indistinct whispers. Words shredded by static, yet imbued with a bizarre allure—an invitation to step beyond the fire's circle into the waiting darkness.
"Damn it!" Karriion spat, slamming his hammer into the ground in defiance, sending a hollow tremor through the clearing.
Raine's heartbeat thundered. He sensed those sounds singled him out. Among the whispers he thought he distinguished the word "Duskstar," and echoed calls that rippled through his mind as though beneath rippling water.
He squeezed shut his eyes, summoning his star‑descendant's gift. Let him foresee the danger—to glimpse what lurked beyond the light.
His vision flooded with starlight, but it brought no clear future. Instead, horrific kaleidoscopes of red‑tinged phantoms swirled—his ancestors as described in the outpost records, but grotesquely twisted by corruption. Skin greyed and clung to bone, limbs unnaturally elongated, faces featureless save for black, oozing voids. They hovered in the void, skeletal hands reaching for Raine's heart, their silent wails brimming with sorrow, rage…and an insatiable hunger, as though seeking to drag him into that endless abyss.
"Aaah!" Raine bolted upright, stomach lurching, drenched in cold sweat. His heart pounded so fiercely he feared it would burst.
"Raine! What did you see?" Karriion demanded, rushing to his side.
Raine could only gasp. His voice rasped, "Them…my ancestors…" He swallowed hard. "The ones from those records…"
Thalia had silently risen beside him. Her own pallor rivaled his terror. "Mental assault," she said in a hushed, grave tone. "They're targeting you." She fixed Raine with a somber look. "Your bloodline…it draws them. They crave your starlight—or perhaps…your life."
Steeling herself, she took a step into the camp's center. Fingers pinched together, she chanted a dire incantation. Dark tendrils of shadow—thicker and more potent than before—flowed from her, coalescing into an oppressive, intangible barrier around the fire. A faint violet halo shimmered where shadow met flame. At once the weeping and whispers stilled outside the ward; the forest resumed its oppressive hush.
But the cost was grievous. Thalia's form shook violently as though crushed by an unseen weight. Her face drained of every scrap of color, breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps. Gritting her teeth, she pressed a hand to her chest—where something inside pounded so fiercely it threatened to shatter her ribs.
"Thalia!" Raine cried in alarm.
"I'm…all right," she whispered, voice pinched. She leaned her back against the tree trunk, eyes clenched, pouring all her strength into holding the barrier.
Karriion circled the perimeter once more. The ward held—no ghostly lamentations, no furtive rustlings. But the sensation of being watched never fully vanished; it only retreated to the edges of perception, waiting for any flicker of weakness.
The Dwarf glared at the forest's black heart, then back to his two companions. "We've made a terrible mistake," he muttered. "This is worse than we imagined."
Raine neither moved nor spoke. Visions of ancestral wraiths, unseen predators, Thalia's sacrifice, and the lurking terror weighed upon him like a mountain. He clutched the Star‑flame Blade's battered hilt—cold, unyielding—to steady himself against the creeping dread.
The night stretched on. The embers guttered between shadow and flame. Beyond Thalia's ward lay boundless dark—and those unseen watchers, ever poised to strike the moment their ward faltered.