Chapter 234: Ch232. Cornered
They had not seen it, but it had seen them.
The forest of Tir’Serene grew even stranger still. Where once there were clearings and sky-glimpses, now the canopy twisted into a ceiling of gnarled roots, and branches fused into one another like ribs over a corpse.
Light filtered through in fractured shafts, pale as old bone.
The path, if it had ever been a path, was gone. They moved now by instinct, guided by Miles’ slow-growing sense of rhythm, an internal pull that throbbed like a distant drumbeat through his veins, whispering always down, always north, toward something low and hidden.
Sarissa had stopped speaking unless necessary. She moved with quiet precision, the limp in her leg now only a slight drag that only reminded her that it was still there.
She scanned trees, listened for wind that never came, and checked their supplies with increasing urgency.
Because something was wrong.
Not wrong like danger, but like being watched by something that smiled without a face.
The signs began subtly.
Small things, like their campfire ashes scattered in the morning, despite them never lighting it, their dried meat chewed, spat out, then left behind in a pattern that mirrored their footprints...
A night when Sarissa swore she heard Miles whisper her name, except he had already been asleep. The next night, Miles heard Sarissa call his, but she had been keeping watch, silent, frozen, staring into the black between trees.