The forest was not quiet.
It breathed, sighed, and whispered in a language that no human tongue could understand — but Elara Wynn had always been good at listening. Even when others called her foolish, naive, or worse, she still listened. That was why her feet, bare and bleeding, kept moving through the bramble-choked threshold of the Dreadwood Expanse.
No map dared chart this place.
No soul dared enter it twice.
And yet, here she was — lantern in one hand, her sister's locket in the other.
"Please," Elara murmured under her breath, not to the forest, but to whatever fate might be listening. "Just a cure. That's all I ask."
The air turned colder.
Behind her, the warm golds of the Verdant Ring faded. Before her, the world twisted — vines like veins, trees like bones, and a sky of indigo so deep it swallowed the moonlight. Her senses sharpened, her breath forming fragile clouds.
Every herbalist in the Ring had warned her: Nothing grows in the Dreadwood except curses and regret.
But they were wrong.
Elara had found a page in a forbidden folio once — Vel Ashen's Black Codex, they called it. Hidden among diagrams of plague roots and war magic was a single, scribbled note:
"The Tears of Sable Fern. Deep in the Dreadwood. Found only near her."
Her.
The one everyone whispered about.
The Witch of Vel Ashen.
The monster.
The curse-bearer.
The immortal horror sealed in thorns and silence.
Elara had laughed when she first read it. Not because it was funny, but because the scholars always made monsters sound so poetic. As if pain could be reduced to legends and half-burnt tales.
Now, standing in the heart of the forest's jaws, she wasn't laughing.
A twig snapped — not under her foot.
Elara froze.
From the corner of her eye, something moved. Not an animal. Too quiet. Too graceful. The air grew heavier, the way it does before a thunderclap. Her lantern flickered, dimmed… and died.
"Elara Wynn," came a voice, low and velvet-drenched. "You brought light into my woods. Unwise."
Elara spun around — but saw nothing.
"I just came for a plant," she said, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice. "The Tears of Sable Fern. To save my sister."
A pause. The silence was sharp.
"No one enters for free," the voice murmured again. Closer now. Above her? Around her?
"I have coin," Elara said, though she knew that wasn't what the forest wanted.
Another pause. Then, soft as silk:
"Foolish girl. I don't want coin."
And from the shadows stepped her.
Tall, cloaked in midnight-woven robes that shimmered like oil on water. Hair like silver fire. Skin the color of storm clouds and eyes like dying stars — not glowing, not blazing, just… watching.
And yet it was the sadness in her gaze that struck Elara the hardest.
Not fury. Not madness.
Sorrow, ancient and worn like a second skin.
"You're her," Elara whispered. "The witch."
A raised brow. "Is that what they call me now? Not 'monster'? Not 'bane of the Ring'? I'm flattered."
Elara took a careful step forward. "You have the fern, don't you?"
The woman tilted her head. "You know what you're asking, little mortal?"
"I'm not little," Elara snapped. "And yes. I'm asking for help."
The witch stepped into the fading light, shadows coiling at her feet like loyal dogs. "Help. From the woman whose name is used to frighten children into obedience."
"I'm not a child," Elara said, her voice firming. "And I don't believe in monsters. Only in people. Hurt people."
That, oddly, made the witch laugh. A bitter, beautiful sound.
"Elara Wynn," she said, tasting the name like a spell. "You are either the bravest fool I've met… or the most dangerous kind."
"Maybe both."
"Then come," the witch said finally, turning away. "But beware. Once you walk deeper, the Dreadwood doesn't let you leave the same."
They walked in silence.
The witch didn't offer her name. Elara didn't ask. The path they followed wasn't a path at all, just instinct and ancient magic shaping the way.
"I read about you," Elara said after a while, unable to bear the quiet. "They said you destroyed half a battalion in the Ember Rebellion. That your spells melted steel."
"They," the witch said, "say many things. Most of them lies."
"And the truth?"
A beat.
"I survived."
It wasn't an answer. But it was enough.
Elara glanced at the woman beside her. Her movements were liquid, her expression unreadable, her aura… not evil, but heavy. Like someone who'd carried too much for too long.
Finally, they reached a glade. And there, growing in perfect silence, was a single fern — black as night, weeping silver dew.
Elara's breath caught.
"The Tears…" she whispered. "It's real."
The witch nodded once. "Take only one leaf. Any more, and the forest will notice."
Elara knelt, reverently snipping a single fernleaf and tucking it into a vial. "This can cure her?"
"It can slow the sickness," the witch said. "But she will need more. Which means you will need… me."
Elara stood. "Then I'll return."
"Most don't, you know."
"I'm not most."
The witch studied her, something unreadable flickering across her face.
"I am Morgwyn," she said at last, voice low and strange. "Last witch of Vel Ashen. And this forest is my sentence."
Elara held her gaze. "Then let me be your visitor."
Behind them, the trees whispered again — not in warning, but in curiosity.
Because something had changed.
In the forest.
In the witch.
In the girl who dared speak her name.
And though neither of them knew it yet, the wheels of fate had begun to turn — slow, heavy, inevitable.
One came seeking a cure.
The other, perhaps, had just found a crack in her cage.
END OF CHAPTER 1