The forest shifted as they moved north.
The trees grew taller, thinner. The ground hardened beneath frost-crusted leaves. The moon disappeared for days, hidden behind thick grey clouds.
It was like the land knew what they were coming for.
And it didn't want them there.
They traveled in silence, thirteen of them now. A few trusted warriors, Nyra, Ezekiel, Xavier—and Raine at the lead.
Each night, the cold bit deeper. Each day, the path twisted unnaturally.
"This place isn't right," Nyra muttered as they passed a ring of trees that all leaned away from something unseen. "Magic's been spilled here. Ancient and angry."
Raine could feel it too.
Her mark flared hotter the closer they got.
On the seventh night, they made camp in a snow-crowned glade.
Raine walked the perimeter while others rested. She heard it then—a voice in the wind.
Low. Female. Familiar.
"The ember sleeps beneath the black roots. Speak the name that never burned."
She froze.
"Who's there?!"
Only snow answered.
When she returned to camp, her pendant was glowing again.
A fourth rune now.
Xavier noticed. "It's changing faster now."
"I think... it knows we're close."
On the eighth morning, they crested a ridge—and there it was:
The Northwood Ruins.
Vines covered the remnants of what had once been a circular temple, carved into the side of a cliff. Snow gathered in the cracks like bone dust.
No animals. No birds.
Just silence and stone.
As they approached, Ezekiel knelt beside a crumbled statue. "These markings... they predate even the First Wolves."
Nyra tensed. "Then what were they worshipping?"
Raine didn't answer.
Her blood thrummed. Her skin buzzed.
The mark on her arm pulsed, and the air around her shimmered—like reality was... thinning.
At the heart of the ruin, they found it.
A sealed stone door, etched with flame-shaped runes and words in a dead tongue.
Raine stepped forward. Her pendant flared—white-hot.
"I think this is it," she whispered. "The gate my mother warned me about."
But as she touched the door, a jolt ran through the earth.
Something stirred beneath the ruins.
Not the Devourer...
Something guarding it.
The ground cracked.
And from the dark, something woke up.