For a moment, all was silence. The figure at the end of the hall did not move. It did not lunge or charge or dissipate into smoke. It simply stood there, as if waiting.
Then, the air shifted.
The darkness was no longer empty. It was filled with movement, with sound. Footsteps rustled against stone, a low murmur of voices layered upon each other, overlapping in a rhythm like the tide. Light bloomed faintly in the distance, golden and flickering, the warm glow of candles and oil lamps lining the walls.
The monastery was awake.
Figures moved through the halls— men and women dressed in simple robes, their hands full of scrolls and ledgers, their voices hushed but hurried. A group of monks passed by the party without a glance, muttering in quiet tones about supply shortages, the worsening condition of the roads, the encroaching wood.
Annemarie’s breath caught. “Do you see—?”
“They don’t see us,” Julia whispered. She waved a hand in front of one of the monks, but the woman continued on, expression grim as she spoke to her companion.
“We’re not here,” Brandon said, his voice low. “Not really.”
Melissa exhaled slowly. “So we’re just... witnessing this?”
“They must be echoes,” Brenna murmured, glancing around. “Residual magic. The monastery is showing us something.”
Annemarie turned, watching as more monks and nuns moved through the vast hall— ghostly figures of the past, untouched by time. If this was a memory, then it was an old one. The Mirrorwood had not yet swallowed the land, but its shadow stretched long in their words.
One of the monks, a lean man with a salt-and-pepper beard, gestured toward the gathering crowd. His voice was weary, resigned. “Moorpond will not last the month.”
The woman beside him, a severe-looking nun, pressed her lips into a thin line. “We’ve known that for some time.”
“Knowing it does not make it easier,” the monk replied. He glanced over his shoulder, expression shadowed. “Lady Callista and her household have chosen to remain with the people.”
At the name, Annemarie inhaled sharply, gaze darting to Julia.
“Callista?” Julia whispered. “She’s—”
“She’s still in Moorpond?” Another monk asked.
“For now,” the first monk confirmed. “But her grandson, young Lord Hiram, has already left. He and his new wife the Duchess of Byfox set out for her estates not three weeks past. Lords Hiram the Elder and Turel urged him to go.”
Brenna went still.
The others didn’t notice at first, still piecing together the conversation unraveling before them, still trying to connect names and places. But Annemarie saw the shift in Brenna’s face, the way her fingers curled into fists.
“Brenna?” Annemarie asked quietly.
Brenna swallowed, her throat working around something heavy. “That’s—” Her voice came out strained, uncertain. “The younger Hiram they’re talking about and his wife— that’s Callista Nazenne’s mother and father.”
The weight of it landed hard between them.
Julia’s stomach flipped. “Wait—”
“Lady Callista Ettaria Arai was probably Callista Nazenne’s namesake. A different generation. She’s Nazenne’s great-grandmother.”
The monks continued speaking, oblivious to the revelation tearing through the party. “Moorpond is lost,” one said grimly. “Byfox has some time, but if nothing changes, it will fall too.”
“Where are the people going?” another asked.
“If they can afford it? To Swynden. Or Lolinglas, if they can make the journey.”
There was a long pause. Then the nun who had spoken earlier shook her head. “Swynden is still in chaos. Rummi and Geurla are pressing for power, and The Nameless One refuses to name them queens. He himself still hasn’t been crowned officially.”
A bitter laugh. “And why should he? His hands are just as stained as theirs.”
The voices moved past them, monks and nuns slipping into the corridors beyond, their figures flickering like candlelight before vanishing into the depths of the monastery.
And then the warmth bled out of the room. The golden glow of the lamps flickered, dimmed— extinguished. And the silence that followed was different.
Not empty. Not quite. Waiting.
Brandon gripped his sword. “What now?”
No answer.
Annemarie’s pulse pounded against her ribs. The echoes of the past had faded, but the monastery was still awake. And they were still inside it.
No one spoke.
The air still held the weight of voices twenty-three years faded, the remnants of footsteps that should no longer exist. The warm candlelight had vanished, leaving only the deep, swallowing dark.
Annemarie turned, her pulse still pounding in her ears. The figures were gone. The voices had faded. The monastery had gone still once more. But it had not returned to how it was before.
She could feel it. Something was listening.
Julia exhaled, steady and slow. “Let’s get back to camp.” No one argued.
They moved carefully, footfalls hushed against the stone. Even though the monastery was silent now, none of them wanted to shatter whatever fragile peace remained. They retraced their steps through the ruined halls, past the broken altar and the gaping windows, their path leading them back to where they had made camp.
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The fire was back. Burning low, but steady.
The sight of it sent a wave of relief through Annemarie’s chest— something real, something untouched by whatever they had just witnessed. The makeshift camp remained as they had left it, their bedrolls and supplies undisturbed.
Brenna sat down first, rubbing a hand over her face. “Well, that was—” She hesitated, shaking her head. “I don’t even know what that was.”
“Some kind of memory,” Julia murmured, crouching near the fire. “The monastery showed us something. Something important.”
Melissa dropped onto her bedroll with a long sigh. “Yeah? Well, I’d rather not see any more. That was way too much ghost nonsense for one day.”
Brandon didn’t sit. He stood just beyond the firelight, staring into the darkened halls. His sword remained in his hand. “Do you think it’ll happen again?” he asked.
No one answered immediately.
Annemarie ran a hand down her arm, fingers pressing into her skin. She still felt unsettled, still felt the weight of something lingering unseen, but— “No,” she said finally. “I think... it’s done.”
The monastery had wanted them to see. Now, it had returned to silence.
Brandon exhaled through his nose and finally sheathed his sword. He sat down, but he didn’t look at ease. None of them did.
They arranged themselves in a loose circle around the fire, their postures tense, minds still wrapped in the weight of what they had learned.
Callista Ettaria Arai.
Hiram and Turel.
Young Hiram and Vevra Nazenne.
The past had unfolded before them, clear as day, and with it, a connection none of them had expected.
Brenna looked down, her fingers tracing absent patterns in the dust. “They were her parents,” she murmured. “Callista’s parents.”
Silence again.
Melissa drew her knees up to her chest. “We saw the beginning of the end,” she muttered. “Moorpond’s last days. Swynden still in chaos after the Cleansing. It didn’t sound like— what was it? Rummi and Geurla?— were very helpful.”
Julia exhaled sharply. “They didn’t stand a chance.”
No one wanted to say it. No one wanted to admit that they had just watched history unfold in the worst way possible.
Annemarie lay back, staring at the vaulted ceiling above them where cracks split the stone like veins. The pull was back, the bond tugging her toward something unseen. But the monastery had not pushed her forward. It hadn’t rejected her, either. It had simply let her witness.
Whatever power had once kept this place untouched had allowed them to see a piece of the past. But why? What did it want them to understand?
The fire crackled softly, sending flickering shadows against the cold stone. No one slept easily.
But nothing else happened.
Morning came reluctantly.
The first pale slivers of dawn crept through the hollow windows of the monastery, casting long beams of watery light across the cracked stone floor. It did little to chase away the lingering weight of the night. The fire had burned down to ash— no one had slept well enough to tend it.
Annemarie sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes. Her muscles ached from the cold and the hard ground, but it was nothing compared to the dull pressure in her chest.
She exhaled.
Brandon was already awake, crouched near the remains of the fire, sharpening his sword with slow, deliberate movements. His eyes flicked up as she moved. “Morning, love.”
Annemarie nodded, stretching her sore arms.
Julia was still curled in her blanket, though Annemarie could tell she wasn’t really asleep. Her breathing was too even, too controlled. Melissa lay sprawled on her back, her arm draped over her face as if she could block out the world. Brenna sat cross-legged nearby, idly running her fingers over the cracked surface of her warding bracelet.
For a moment, no one spoke. Then Julia let out a long breath and sat up, shoving her tangled blonde hair out of her face. “So. We survived the night.”
Melissa groaned into her sleeve. “I don’t want to do do this first thing in the morning.”
“Do what?” Julia shot back.
Melissa gestured vaguely. “Thinking. Talking. Remembering that ghosts are real.”
Brenna snorted. “You’re in the wrong world for that, Mel.”
Melissa made a vague noise of protest and rolled onto her side, burying her face in her bedroll.
Julia stretched, rolling out her stiff shoulders. “We’ve got two days to reach Byfox. We should get moving soon.”
Brandon glanced toward the monastery entrance, where the first rays of daylight barely reached beyond the threshold. “I’ll be honest. I’ll feel a lot better when we’re out of here.”
No one disagreed.
They packed up quickly, moving with quiet efficiency. The eerie stillness of the monastery had returned, and no one wanted to linger in it. They left the firepit behind, scattered their footprints, and stepped back into the morning air.
The sky was still choked with clouds, but the air was crisp. Their breaths misted in front of them as they descended from the ridge, the monastery’s broken silhouette looming behind them like an unspoken warning.
They did not look back.
The road west was rough and uneven, more a path of compacted dirt and broken stone than anything truly maintained. What might have been signposts had rotted away, and the trees on either side stood crooked and bare, skeletal branches reaching toward the sky like grasping hands.
No one spoke much at first.
The weight of what they had seen in the monastery still clung to them— Moorpond’s fate, Byfox’s impending fall, the names they recognized woven into a history that had already happened.
It had felt real. Not just words in a book or distant echoes of the past. They had seen the worry on the monks’ faces, heard their voices. Felt the fear and resignation hanging in the air.
“They had no idea,” Annemarie murmured suddenly.
Julia glanced at her. “What?”
“The monks. The nuns. The people in the monastery.” Annemarie frowned, watching the path beneath her boots. “They knew Moorpond was doomed and Byfox had some time—”
Brandon exhaled through his nose. “But we know how that turned out.”
“Yeah.” Annemarie’s stomach twisted. “Hiram and Turel’s desire to protect their people was... twisted. And Byfox still fell.” She sighed. “We know how it ends.”
“And we can’t do anything about it.” Brenna’s voice was quiet.
Melissa rubbed her arms, walking a little faster to keep warm. “I hate that,” she muttered. “Watching people talk about their future when you already know they don’t have one.”
No one responded.
The wind picked up, rustling the brittle grass along the roadside.
Julia’s brow furrowed. “If the monastery wanted to show us something, why that?”
Brandon looked at her. “What do you mean?”
She gestured vaguely. “Why tell us about Callista Ettaria and not Callista Nazenne? Why tell us about Young Hiram and Vevra leaving instead of what happened to them? Why show us the beginning of the fall, not the end?”
Annemarie frowned. It was a good question.
The monastery had not shown them death. It had not shown them the destruction of Byfox, the full force of the Mirrorwood’s curse, or the desperate final moments of those who stayed behind.
It had shown them the people who had left.
Annemarie swallowed. “It wasn’t a warning,” she realized aloud. “It was a decision.”
Brenna’s gaze sharpened. “What do you mean?”
“The Ettarias stayed. The monks said Callista Ettaria Arai and her family chose to remain in Moorpond. But Young Hiram and Vevra left for Byfox.” Annemarie’s fingers tightened around the straps of her pack. “The monastery showed us a choice. The ones who stayed, and the ones who ran.”
The wind whistled through the trees.
Brenna’s expression was unreadable. “And?”
Annemarie hesitated. “I don’t know.” But she had a feeling they weren’t done learning what the past had to tell them.
And whatever waited in Byfox— it hadn’t even started.
