THE CONFROMTATION — DARA ARRIVES

THE CONFROMTATION — DARA ARRIVES
A sharp whistle cut through the air.
From the other side of the clearing, Dara appeared on horseback, her cloak lined with runes, torchlight casting sharp shadows across her face. A dozen riders followed.

“Toma!” she called, dismounting. “Step away from the altar!”

Kelvin’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not binding her.”

Dara ignored him. Her gaze locked onto Toma. “Child, the echo inside you is not your burden to carry alone. The seal can give you balance—give us time.”

“You mean control,” Toma said flatly. “Like you did to the last vessel.”

Murmurs among the council. Kelvin stepped in front of her, protective. “She’s not going anywhere in chains.”

“I hoped it wouldn’t come to this,” Dara said, and raised her hand.

Behind her, Varys stepped forward, robed in black, a grim smile playing at his lips.

“No more delays,” he said. “Let the forest show its truth.”

He dropped a shard of obsidian to the earth.

The ground shuddered.

From the soil, roots surged upward, gnarled and black-veined, striking like snakes. One council rider was pulled screaming into the brush. Another was knocked clean off her horse.

Toma staggered, the mark on her skin glowing hot.

Kelvin grabbed her arm. “We have to move—”

“No,” she said, eyes locked on the altar. “It wants me to see.”

The vines coiled around her legs—but did not harm her. Instead, they lifted her, holding her aloft as leaves spiraled in a circle around the clearing.

“TOMA!” Kelvin shouted.

Varys raised his hand to intervene, but Dara pushed him back. “It’s too late!”

A blast of wind sent the council flying back, even Kelvin was forced to his knees.

Toma hovered above the altar—eyes glowing fully now, her voice layered with many:
“The seal broke long before me. You fed the roots with your lies. Now the forest remembers.” And then—she vanished.

The vines pulled her into the earth, swallowed whole.

Silence fell.

The roots went still.

The forest was never silent—not truly.
Beneath the canopy, wind rustled the blackened leaves, and somewhere above, a raven called twice and vanished into the haze. Toma sat at the center of an overgrown grove, bare feet tangled in moss and roots, hands resting on her knees, palms upward, fingers twitching unconsciously.

Her breathing was shallow. Measured. But not her own.

The forest was breathing through her.
Each time she closed her eyes, she saw things—not dreams, but memories that didn’t belong to her: a boy kneeling before an altar of bones… a woman screaming as vines pulled her beneath the earth… the forest burning under a silver sky… a seal of stone shattering like glass.

“The vessel breaks, the roots awake…”
The whisper echoed again, neither male nor female. Not inside her head—but through the trees, vibrating in the air itself.
She opened her eyes. The grove had shifted again.

The altar was growing.

What had once been a ring of dead stones was now pulsating with slow life—roots threading through cracks, moss blooming like veins across its surface. In the center, a bloom of blood-red petals opened silently, facing her.

She stepped forward, drawn to it. Her hand extended—hovering just above the flower—when she paused.

A sound. Not the forest.
A howl. Distant. Familiar.
Her eyes widened. “Kelvin…”

The thunder of hooves pounded the woodland trail as Dara’s riders pushed hard through the edgewood. Their torches cut through the thickening mist like jagged flame, illuminating half-seen shapes that slithered just beyond reach.

Elder Dara, riding at the front, held the fragment of the old seal clutched to her chest, bound in cloth and sigils. The closer they drew to the grove, the more the shard throbbed—a pulse, faint but steady.

“She’s close,” Dara called to her flank.

Beside her, Councilor Varys rode silently, eyes narrowed, lips twisted in thought.

“You can feel it, can’t you?” he said. “The forest’s will, how it stirs when we draw near. Like a guardian beast or a mother.”

“She is not to be touched,” Dara warned “The rite must be done by tradition.”

Varys said nothing, but the flicker of dark satisfaction passed across his face. Behind them, a scout approached, blood on his arm.

“Alpha Kelvin’s wolves were sighted. Hollowfang is ahead. Less than half a mile.”

Dara scowled.

“Then we’re already late.”