I met a merchant on the road to Thornwall today — a thin man with quick eyes and a cart full of bottled light. He offered me a vial of captured starfire for ten silvers. I told him I had no use for bottled light. He smiled and said everyone says that until they’re lost in the Ashwood after dark.
He wasn’t wrong. The Ashwood has been swallowing travelers for weeks. The trees have shifted — old paths that were safe a month ago now lead to the Hollowed Glade, where the ground breathes and the air tastes like copper.
I bought two vials. If the forest is changing, I’ll need light that doesn’t come from torches. Torches attract the wrong things in the Ashwood.
The merchant also told me something else. There’s a warlord in the east — Lady Seraphine — who’s been buying up ancient weapons from ruins. Not for an army. For a single purpose. The weapons she’s buying are all bound with old magic. The kind that only works once.
I’m heading to the Ashwood tomorrow. If the forest is waking up, I need to know why before it does something irreversible.
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