The forest did not wake gently.
At first, it was the birds—circling instead of flying straight, their cries sharp and confused. Then the smaller creatures—foxes, fawns, and badgers—began to pace unnaturally, their instincts off.
The moss that usually glowed warmly in the dawnlight flickered erratically.
Sylvanor stood in the center of the grove, eyes closed, hands on the earth.
He whispered a prayer of balance, and yet... the ground shivered in reply.
Nearby, Rakshak knelt beside a shriveled root-vein. He pressed his ear to the soil.
"The land is shifting," he said grimly. "Something dark presses from below."
Sylvanor opened his eyes. "I feel it too. Not corruption… something older."
Rakshak's bark creaked as he stood. "Something buried. And waking."
2. The Forgotten Tunnel
Liora wandered near the grove's southern edge, where roots tangled thickest and old stones slept half-swallowed by vines.
She was chasing a drifting moth—glowing faintly blue—when she stumbled over a lump in the earth.
Brushing away dirt and leaves, she found it: a circular stone hatch. Faint carvings lined the rim, and a metal ring lay cold at its center.
When she touched it, the moth vanished.
And something below stirred.
Sylvanor was there in seconds, drawn by the shift in the air. He knelt by the hatch and pressed a hand to the surface.
He recoiled.
"What is it?" Liora asked, afraid.
He looked at her, his face shadowed. "Magic. Deep and wrong. Twisted by time. This isn't part of the forest."
Rakshak approached. "This is older than the forest."
Sylvanor touched the hatch again, and this time, whispered: "Rootcall."
Vines slithered aside. The hatch creaked open, revealing a stone stairway swallowed by darkness.
No scent of rot. No warmth. Only dust, stone, and an echo that didn't belong.
"We go together," Sylvanor said.
The tunnel descended far beyond the roots of even the elder trees.
As they walked, the walls grew colder, their surfaces slick with forgotten fungi and runes that seemed to blur when looked at directly.
Sylvanor kept his hand against the wall, drawing light from the living moss he carried. Even that glow seemed subdued here.
Finally, they stepped into a vast subterranean hall.
Broken columns lined the walls. Strange, fractured murals—depicting beings with blank faces and outstretched hands—were etched across the stone. In places, names had been carved… then violently scratched out.
A thick silence hung in the air.
At the center stood a cracked dais, and upon it:
An unlit brazier.
A shattered mask, its face mirror-smooth, split down the center like a wound.
Sylvanor stepped forward, drawn by something beneath thought.
Then—A whisper.
Faint. Not from the walls, but from somewhere deeper.
"The Namegiver who forgets… shall become the Name-Eater."
Rakshak's branches stiffened. "This place remembers… too much."
Sylvanor felt the weight of it pressing into his bones.
Sylvanor placed his hand upon the cracked dais.
The instant skin met stone, the world vanished.
He was falling—then floating—then standing on a desolate plain where the sky had no stars and the trees stood leafless and petrified. A silence older than death stretched in every direction.
Before him stood a man.
Or something that had once been a man.
He wore no face—only a blank, reflective mask like polished bone. Around his neck hung strands of names, glowing like embers, pulsing faintly with memory.
They whispered as they moved, flickering with stolen voices.
The figure raised a hand.
"Before kingdoms, before titles, there was power. And I... devoured it."
The world twisted.
Sylvanor saw glimpses:—A thousand names being consumed like fire into lungs.—Gods casting a faceless being into the void.—A tree burning from the roots up, screaming in the voice of every creature it had ever sheltered.
And then—
He stood across from the being.
But this time, he wore the mask.
The Nameless Sovereign smiled.
"You carry a piece of what was mine. A shard. A seed.
Let it grow, Forest King… and watch what blooms."
Sylvanor staggered backward, gasping. Blood dripped from his nose. The dais had cracked beneath him.
The shattered mirror-mask was gone.
Rakshak caught him, eyes wide with alarm. "You were gone for moments… but you screamed like the forest in winter."
Sylvanor could only nod.
He turned toward the chamber walls—and froze.
One rune now pulsed faintly, as if woken from centuries of sleep.
It bore his True Name.But the letters were mirrored, inverted—warped.
Rakshak read it and hissed. "It saw you. And now it holds your reflection."
Sylvanor whispered, "Then the past is no longer buried."
As they emerged from the hidden tunnel, dawn had risen—but the air felt colder than before.
Waiting at the grove's outer roots were three figures in robes of bark-fiber and bone-thread. Their hoods hid their faces, but each bore the same sigil:
A name carved into a jawbone, broken clean through.
Rakshak's bark cracked. "The Order of the Broken Name… extinct since the Age of Binding."
The lead figure stepped forward, bowing slightly.
"We mean no harm… yet," he said softly. "But the world turns once more, and your name is waking things best left buried."
Sylvanor raised his staff, thornlight flickering at its end. "Speak quickly. Or leave… in roots."
The man did not flinch.
"We came not to challenge you. Only to warn you."
He stepped closer, just enough for Sylvanor to glimpse his face—a mouth sewn shut, yet somehow still speaking.
"The Nameless One remembers you, Sylvanor.And soon… so will the gods."