ANEICA
The wolves did not follow.
She had expected them to try — to snap at her heels, to growl in warning, to herd her back to the safety of known paths and old ways. But when she crossed the stream that marked the edge of their territory, none came after.
Even Liri stayed behind.
The pup had watched from the brambles, ears low, tail still, eyes shining with something between sorrow and understanding. Anecia hadn't spoken. She couldn't. Her throat had closed too tight with the weight of goodbye. But as she disappeared into the mists, she had looked back only once.
And Liri had howled.
Not a cry of mourning.
Not of loss.
But something gentler.
Permission.
The Hollowed Grove lay westward, where the trees thickened and the light grew strange. Moss coated every surface like a second skin. Roots curled across the ground like sleeping serpents. And the air — it hummed. Not with sound, but with memory.
Every step Anecia took felt like walking into a dream she hadn't had yet.
Her mark pulsed stronger now, matching her heartbeat. It was no longer just a flicker. It was alive beneath her skin — warming her from the inside out. She didn't question it anymore. Some part of her — older, buried deep — knew this place.
The moment she stepped past the ring of ancient stones, the forest changed.
The silence deepened.
The wind stopped.
And the veil lifted.
The trees here did not sway. They breathed.
The light did not shine. It listened.
And between the roots, flickers of silver danced — tiny motes, drifting like fireflies, but wrong. They glowed too brightly. Moved too purposefully. Some even turned to watch her.
Anecia's breath caught. Her fingers flexed against her sides. Her bare feet pressed into the cool earth, which pulsed once — beneath her toes — like a heartbeat not her own.
She didn't run.
She couldn't.
She belonged here.
Her hand hovered near the mark. "What… am I?" she whispered aloud.
The trees responded.
Their bark cracked, and something like language moved through the air — not in sound, but in shape. The moss rearranged itself. The silver lights spiraled together.
And then she heard it.
A voice.
Soft. Feminine. Familiar.
"You are our blood… and our grief."
Anecia turned sharply, but there was no one there. Just mist and moonlight and the stillness of the ancient wood.
She moved deeper, breath shaking. The path was not one she saw, but felt — tugging her forward through groves of white blossoms and roots that shimmered when touched. With each step, memories bloomed inside her — not her own, but fragments.
A woman's laughter by a glowing pool.
A lullaby sung in a tongue she did not know, but her bones remembered.
A birthmark pressed against a warm chest — someone whispering: "You are starlight, little one. Born to balance the wild and the wane."
She stumbled. Fell to her knees.
The earth pulsed again.
And this time, it spoke through her mark.
Not with sound.
Not with pain.
But with a sudden rush of truth.
Anecia gasped as her vision clouded with silver. The world around her faded — trees melting into mist, ground falling away. She stood in darkness, wrapped in soft light. And there, in the center of it all, stood a figure.
A woman.
Her skin was dusky silver, her eyes glowing with the same violet hue as Anecia's. Her hair moved like smoke, her cloak stitched from starlight.
Fae.
Real. And watching her.
"Daughter of dusk," the woman said. "Born of both fang and flame. We have waited long for you to awaken."
Anecia could not speak. Could not breathe.
"You are not cursed," the voice continued. "You are sealed. Hidden. Buried — for your own protection."
"From who?" Anecia choked out. "From what?"
"From the ones who would use your blood to unbind the veil between worlds."
The fae woman stepped forward. Her face was kind, but fierce — like moonlight on a blade.
"The world is shifting, child. The Hunt stirs again. And you — you are the key."
The mark on Anecia's shoulder burned so brightly now it cast shadows.
And when she woke — for it had all been dream, vision, memory, truth — she was lying in the heart of the Hollowed Grove, cradled in glowing roots, bathed in moonlight, and changed.
She did not know her full name.
Or the full truth of her blood.
But she knew this:
The forest had raised her.
But the stars had made her.
And the veil between worlds was thinning.