Tessa POV
The path back was different. Quieter.
Even the air felt heavier now, thick with what I carried. The statues seemed older. The leaves less luminous. As if the forest itself had heard what I’d learned… and mourned for me.
No birdsong. No wind. Only the slow, steady beat of my boots on dark earth and the echo of the Seer’s words threading through my mind like wire.
At the forest’s edge, the others waited. Rylan was already striding toward me, his stance alert but his expression unreadable. He didn’t speak. Just scanned my face, nodded once, and fell in beside me. Galen approached slower. Eyes sharp. Careful. As if gauging whether I was still entirely… me.
I didn’t answer the questions I saw there. Not yet.
We walked in silence, the others following behind. The trees thinned with every step, but the hush didn’t lift. And just before the veil of bone-colored trunks fully released us back into the world, I stopped and turned.
The Seer’s hut was gone. Not just dark. Gone.
The clear
