The sky had darkened as they traveled, the sun lingering somewhere behind thick clouds but offering no warmth. Only a faded, sickly light seeped through, making everything feel stretched thin. Shadows sprawled along the ground, longer than they should have been, bending at unnatural angles as though they were unsure of their own shapes.

  For miles, the land had been changing.

  At first, the shifts had been subtle— small enough to ignore. Trees grew gnarled, their trunks twisted in on themselves like old wounds, branches clawing skyward in warped, desperate arcs. Rocks jutted from the earth in strange formations— some smoothed unnaturally clean, others fractured and jagged, as though something inside had tried to break free.

  The further they walked, the older the world felt. Not in the way of time’s natural erosion, but in a way that was wrong. As if the land itself had been forced to age in a direction it was never meant to go, twisting its essence and unraveling the threads of what it was supposed to be.

  No one spoke.

  Moorpond was behind them, but its weight still clung to their shoulders like a damp cloth, heavy and unwelcome.

  Annemarie kept her eyes forward. The pull westward had not faded. It remained a steady, unrelenting force. But something had changed— it was no longer just drawing her forward. It was tightening. Like the Mirrorwood had finally noticed them.

  The road curved along a ridge of stone, and as they crested the incline, they saw it. The monastery. A dark silhouette against the mist-heavy sky, looming in silence.

  “There,” Julia said, pointing.

  Once it had been grand. Even from a distance, its ruined splendor was evident— tall stone walls, still standing but worn by time. Arched windows, long emptied of glass, gaping like hollow eyes. Faint traces of carved reliefs lined the outer walls— scenes of saints, their faces eroded smooth, their expressions lost.

  Now, it was sinking into the land like the earth had tried to swallow it whole. Its walls slumped beneath the weight of expedited centuries, half-buried in the soil as if the ground itself had tried to reclaim it. Entire sections had collapsed, leaving jagged wounds of broken stone and twisted beams. Vines curled through the ruins, but they were not green— they were pale and brittle, drained of life, clinging like veins to a corpse.

  And despite its ruin, the monastery still stood. Its shadow stretched too far in the dim light. Its empty walls stared outward. The wind, which had been still for miles, whispered faintly here, stirring through broken archways like a breath from something deep beneath the stone.

  Annemarie’s jaw tightened. She hadn’t realized she’d stopped breathing.

  “This place is cursed,” Melissa muttered. “Like— obviously everything out here is cursed. But this? Extra cursed.”

  Julia exhaled sharply. “We don’t have another option. It’s shelter.”

  “Shelter,” Melissa repeated flatly, gesturing toward the skeletal remains of the monastery. “Sure. Because that looks safe.”

  “It’s safer than staying out in the open.”

  Brandon turned and scanned the horizon behind them. His jaw was tight, his eyes narrowed. “Julia’s right. We need to stop before nightfall. We don’t want to be out here when—”

  He didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t have to. No one wanted to say what they all understood: whatever was watching them was getting closer.

  Brenna, who had been silent until now, let out a slow breath. “Fine,” she said, shifting. “But I’m marking the exit. If something tries to lock us inside, I want to know before it’s too late.” No one argued.

  Up close, the decay was worse. The wooden doors had long since rotted away, leaving only a frame of splintered remains. The courtyard beyond was choked with brittle grass, its stone cracked and uneven, disrupted by time— or, most likely, something else. The eroded reliefs on the outer walls seemed to stare at them.

  Annemarie hesitated at the threshold.

  The pull remained, steady and insistent, but the monastery had a different weight to it. Not the force of the Mirrorwood. Not the twisting resistance of Moorpond. Something else.

  A place abandoned by the divine. A place that had once been sacred, but was no longer.

  Julia stepped through first, her expression wary but resolute. “Let’s check the interior. If the roof is intact in any of the halls, we’ll stay there.”

  They moved carefully through the ruins, past collapsed pillars and shattered stonework. The monastery was larger than it had seemed from the ridge, its halls stretching deep into the hillside. Some doors were impassable, choked with rubble. Others yawned open, dark and empty.

  As they stepped inside, the air thickened. Not with dust or age, but with absence. It was the same silence they had felt in Moorpond— the same waiting emptiness— but this time, there was no frozen town, no lingering figures trapped in time. Only a place left behind.

  Annemarie’s pulse quickened. Not because she felt watched, but because she didn’t. For the first time since they had entered this cursed land, there was no pressure, no push, no pull.

  The Mirrorwood wasn’t rejecting her here. The bond wasn’t dragging her forward. This place existed in the in-between— untouched by whatever had consumed everything else. And that, more than anything, unsettled her.

  Brandon stepped past her, sword in hand. “We’ll check the main hall. Stay close.”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  The last traces of daylight had bled away, leaving only the dim, flickering glow of their lanterns. The monastery swallowed the light hungrily, its shadows deep and unmoving, stretching too far in the corners of the broken halls.

  They walked in silence. Not because they wanted to, but because anything felt like it would break something fragile in the air. Something that had been waiting, undisturbed, for far too long.

  The main hall stretched ahead, vast and cavernous. Its arched ceiling was mostly intact despite the ruin. Their footsteps echoed off the stone, too loud, as if the space had been empty for so long that sound had forgotten how to belong here.

  It should have been a place of worship. It wasn’t.

  The remnants of an altar stood at the far end, the stone cracked down the center splitting whatever inscription had once been carved into it. A mural loomed behind it, its paint faded, its figures long since worn away.

  Beneath it, the rows of pews had rotted, some collapsed into splinters, others still standing but warped by time and leaning at unnatural angles. Dust coated everything, untouched by the wind, settling thick in the air as they moved.

  But there was no scent of rot. No signs of life. No bodies. And yet, despite the emptiness, despite the silence, it did not feel abandoned.

  Brandon’s grip tightened on his sword. “I hate this place.”

  “Good,” Melissa muttered, nudging aside a fallen beam with her boot. “Means you have sense.”

  Julia moved cautiously down the aisle, scanning the hall with a wary eye. “The roof is intact here. This is our best option for shelter.”

  “Safe isn’t the word I’d use,” Brenna said under her breath, adjusting the straps of her satchel. She tilted her wrist, checking the state of her warding bracelet. The cracks had deepened, the runes nearly unreadable.

  Annemarie hovered near the entrance, her arms folded tightly against her chest. The Mirrorwood had swallowed everything. It had taken entire cities, twisted landscapes, corrupted whatever lingered in its grasp. So why had it left this? Why had it skipped this place?

  “Something’s off,” she murmured.

  Brandon turned, brow furrowing. “You mean besides the obvious?”

  Annemarie hesitated. “It’s not just the ruin. The Mirrorwood should have taken this place. It should have twisted it, consumed it the way it did Moorpond. But it didn’t. It left it alone.”

  Julia’s expression darkened. “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  And that was the problem. The Mirrorwood did not leave things alone. It either claimed or rejected, but the monastery was neither.

  Whatever had once protected it was still lingering.

  Brenna let out a slow breath, glancing back toward the entrance. “If it’s outside the Mirrorwood’s grip, then it’s the best shelter we’re going to get. But I don’t think we should get comfortable.”

  “Agreed,” Julia said. “We stay together. We don’t split up. We keep watches through the night.”

  Melissa clicked her tongue. “What a fantastic idea, considering none of us are going to sleep anyway.”

  They moved quickly, clearing space for camp. A cluster of the less-broken pews were dragged into a rough circle. Supplies were set down, and rations unpacked. Brenna scrawled small protective sigils onto the stone floor with a piece of chalk— extra layers of security, just in case.

  Still, no one sat with their backs to the open room. No one let their guard down.

  The fire was small, barely more than embers, but it was something— a fragile warmth against the cold stone, against the hollow vastness of the monastery.

  But as the night deepened, the silence did, too. Not the stillness of emptiness. Not the quiet of a place abandoned. But something listening. Something waiting. And then, just past the edge of the firelight, one of the pews shifted.

  It didn’t collapse or crumble like one might expect. It moved with a sound like old wood groaning under pressure. Like something inside the monastery was stirring.

  Annemarie didn’t breathe. Her pulse thundered against her ribs as she slowly, slowly turned her head.

  The pew that had been tilting slightly to one side was now upright. Centered. As if someone had set it back in place.

  The hair on the back of her neck rose. “Did anyone else see that?” she whispered.

  Melissa had already drawn her daggers, eyes locked on the same spot. “Yeah,” she murmured. “We’re not alone.”

  And as if in response, somewhere deep in the halls beyond the fire’s reach— a door creaked open.

  The sound echoed through the cavernous space, slow and deliberate. A long, groaning creak, followed by the soft, unmistakable click of a door settling into place.

  No one moved. No one breathed.

  Annemarie’s pulse hammered against her ribs. The pew. The door. The weight in the air— thick, pressing, like a held breath just waiting to exhale.

  Brandon shifted first, hand tightening on his sword as he rose to his feet. “That wasn’t the wind.”

  “No shit,” Melissa hissed, already crouched with her daggers in her hands. Her eyes flicked toward the yawning darkness beyond the main hall, where the sound had come from.

  For a long moment, nothing followed. The monastery held its silence like a thing alive, pressing in around them, waiting. Then— a slow, deliberate shuffle. A footstep. Faint. Muffled. But unmistakable.

  It was not the sound of debris shifting. Not the groan of the old structure settling under its own weight. Someone was there.

  Brandon moved instinctively, stepping in front of Annemarie. “Stay behind me.”

  Julia’s fingers twitched toward her belt, where her knife hung sheathed. “We need to move. Now.”

  “Move where?” Brenna’s voice was tight, barely above a whisper. “Back outside, where we know something’s watching? Or deeper in, where something’s waiting?”

  No answer. There wasn’t a good one.

  The fire flickered, casting their shadows long against the cracked stone walls. The mural behind the broken altar seemed different now— its faded figures stretched unnaturally in the shifting light, blank faces turned toward them.

  Another sound. A whisper of movement in the hall beyond. The fire guttered suddenly, as if something had passed too close to it.

  Melissa swore. “We are not waiting around to see what that is.”

  Brandon nodded once, jaw tight. “We take the main corridor. Move fast, stay together.”

  They fell into step without another word, keeping low, staying close.

  Annemarie felt it again— the pull westward, the bond’s silent insistence. But it did not guide her here. Did not push her forward or drag her back. It left her to decide, and that terrified her more than anything else.

  They reached the edge of the hall, where the arched doorway led into the deeper corridors of the monastery. The firelight didn’t reach beyond it.

  Just before they stepped through, Brenna’s breath hitched. “Wait,” she whispered.

  They froze.

  She raised a shaking hand, pointing. At the far end of the hall, where the last slivers of dying firelight met the dark, a figure stood. Still. Silent. Watching.

  And then, just as they saw it— the fire went out.

  luck I'll be able to edit today and start updating chapters, but we'll see.