"Not everyone who enters the Veinwoods returns—but some do, and they never come back alone. Sometimes the forest lets go. Sometimes it simply chooses another way to hold on."
With the healer exiting the chamber, Amara turned her focus
The door shut with a quiet thud, and the scent of crushed herbs and medicinal smoke slowly faded as the healer's footsteps echoed down the hallway. With her exit, the chamber fell into a contemplative stillness, broken only by the soft rustle of wind against the tall arched windows and the faint creaking of old wood breathing with the shifting day.
Amara then turned her attention to the figure who had so far remained silent—tall, broad-shouldered, and motionless, like a sentry made of earth and time itself. He stood with his back partly turned to her, gazing through the pale glass panes that overlooked the endless, mist-veiled forest beyond. His silhouette was outlined by the silvered light pouring in, and for a long moment, neither of them moved.
Though he appeared youthful—sharp jaw, high cheekbones, and eyes like still water, Amara believed he was much older. Something in the way he carried stillness, as if silence itself bent around him. Amara couldn't explain it, but looking at him felt like staring at the remnants of a bygone era. He seemed older than the forest, the runes carved in the stones outside Aethermoor's borders, older than even the magic that still lingered like dust in the atmosphere although few could harness in now.
The chamber was large and spare, but not cold. Its walls, the color of old parchment, were covered in faded murals—fragments of beings with too many limbs or none at all, painted in ochres and reds that seemed half -devoured by time. Heavy beams crossed the ceiling overhead, dark with age, and ivy had found its way in through the corners of the windowpanes, curling against the stone like it was trying to remember something.
The fireplace had burned low, but the scent of ash and resin still hung in the air. There were herbs drying above it, and a kettle rested nearby, long gone cold. A single chair stood beside Amara's bed, carved of blackened wood. Despite its age and sparse furnishings, the room felt lived in, as though the walls remembered every word that was spoken, every wound that healed within the chambers.
She shifted slightly beneath the covers, her joints aching with the movement. "You've been standing there a while," she said, her voice rough from disuse.
Eirion turned to her with a slowness that seemed deliberate, not weary. His eyes, dark and clear, held a calm that made her uneasy—not because it was threatening, but because it was too calm, as though nothing could startle him anymore.
"I was waiting for you to atleast be able to talk," he replied, his tone even. "Are you? You seemed pretty weak when I saw you first. I left you for a moment and you fainted."
Amara frowned. "I'm not sure. But I'm awake, and I think I deserve to know what's going on."
He walked toward her and took the chair beside the bed, folding his long frame into it with surprising grace. He sat with the posture of a soldier or a priest—formal, but not stiff. For a while, he simply watched her, and the room seemed to shrink to just the two of them.
"I found you at the edge of the Veinwoods," he said at last,"bleeding, and half-starved. You were concious back there. No signs of pursuit, but you were... not alone in the trees. Do you recall that?"
A cold prickle ran down Amara's spine. "I know."
"You managed to run away," Eirion continued. "The forest doesn't let people go or unless something....usually worse has driven them out."
She hesitated, then met his gaze. "It didn't let me go. I escaped." Her voice was low, bitter. "And not by its mercy."
He inclined his head slightly, not arguing. "Then perhaps you should tell me what happened. The Veinwoods are cursed ground to us—yet you made it through alive. Very few manage that feat."
Amara sighed, dragging her fingers across the blanket. "It's not a simple story. I wasn't supposed to be there. Not really."
She glanced out the window, the vast red-black canopy of the forest stretching out beyond the hills like a sea of withering flame. "I was with a small group. Investigators, scholars... fools, maybe. We were trying to map out the dying lines of old magic. There's been unrest near the outer villages, unexplained blight and vanishing streams. The source pointed toward the forest. Everyone knew it was dangerous, but we thought... we thought we could slip in and out. Quietly. Carefully."
Eirion said nothing, but the stillness around him seemed to deepen.
Amara's hands clenched. "We were wrong. So wrong. One by one, they disappeared. Some walked straight into the shadows and were never seen again. Some went mad. A few might have survived for they themselves could cast a few spells. But no matter how hard I tried looking for them, i couldnt find a single soul. I don't even know what I saw in there. Things that looked like people and didn't move like them. Things that wore our faces. I kept running. I kept moving even when I couldn't feel my legs anymore. And then... ." Her voice was hoarse and heavy. She stopped midsentence as if to contemplate how she was supposed to explain the rest of what happened.
Studying her face, Eirion decided to ask her in parts. "You said you escaped. What drove you to the edge? What pushed the forest to spit you out?"
She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her throat felt tight. "Something inside me... fought back. When I should've died, I didn't. When I should've screamed, I turned silent. It was as if something else took over. Something... not entirely me."
"Did you receive help? " He enquired for it was unfathomable even for him that anyone could escape that dread all on their own.
"Yes. " Amara replied carefully. "I saw these figures, creatures...I am not too sure what they were. They gave me directions across the path. They were the ones who guided me through the forest after I seeked help for a long time."
"And you trusted them?"
"I was already doomed. I did not have much of a choice in the matter. So I gave them a chance. And they did actually ensure that I get here safely."
A flicker of interest passed across his expression, but he masked it quickly. "You carry power."
"I'm not a mage," she said, almost defensively. "Not trained, at least. Just... sensitive. Too sensitive, maybe."
"There are old forces in the Veinwoods. Once established before the forest was corrupted. They still reside there. Not everyone can interact with them. They could help you only because you could see them." Eirion said softly. "The woods have many vile creatures. They mark people. Sometimes they sleep in your bones for years before waking. Sometimes they wake when the world has no other answer. Do you suppose you could be marked too?"
That silenced her.
After a while, she asked, "What is this place? Aethermoor, they called it?"
He nodded. "Aethermoor. A settlement built by those who once bent magic to their will—and later, those who fled from it. We are what remains. We heal, we remember, and we defend what little still lives."
Amara leaned back, her body sinking into the pillows. "And you? What are you, Eirion?"
The question hung in the air like frost.
He didn't look offended. Only thoughtful. "A guardian. Of sorts."
"Of the forest?"
"No, that was long ago" he said. "Now only of those who survive it."
Her breath caught slightly. Something about his voice, the way it didn't carry pride or pity, only quiet certainty—it made her feel like he understood far more than he let on.
"So what now?" she asked. "Do I stay here until your healers decide I'm whole again? And then what—go back to a land that might already be swallowed by what's coming?"
"That depends," Eirion said. "Where do you plan to go?"
She hesitated. The thought of returning to her outpost—of facing the questions, the pity, the silence of those who hadn't gone with her—turned her stomach. "I don't know. But I can't stay here. Not forever."
He nodded once. "Then rest a little longer. Let your wounds knit fully. When you're strong enough, you may leave. No one here will stop you."
"Not even you?"
Eirion's eyes were distant again, watching the forest through the window. "I was never meant to keep you. Only to make sure you could choose for yourself."
Amara followed his gaze. The sky was starting to darken, streaked with grey and rust-red like old blood smeared across parchment. The forest, even from here, looked like it was breathing.
"What's waiting for me out there?" she whispered.
He didn't look at her when he answered. "That depends on what's awakened inside you."
A shiver ran through her—not of fear, but of the gravity of her situation and of those she had to protect.
She didn't know how to protect anyone when her own life was saved because of the forest's ploy.
The silence between them this time was bearable to Amara, not heavy. The room held it gently, like it had witnessed such moments before and would again. Somewhere in the rafters, a moth beat its wings against the ceiling, seeking a way out into the night.
Far below, deep in the heart of thek woods, something stirred.