The forest was quiet.
Not the usual quiet one - not the kind you get used to when you walk alone among the trees. This was an older silence. Denser. Alive.
Sharon walked slowly, feeling the softness of the moss under her feet, which seemed to pulse with warmth. It was as if the forest itself was still touching her - no longer holding her, but was carrying her away.
The branches gave way to her reluctantly, as if they wanted to wrap themselves around her shoulders and keep her here forever. Drops of dew fell from the leaves, leaving cool marks on her skin.
She didn't look back.
She didn't need to.
She felt a presence.
She felt the gaze.
The words of the ritual still rang in her head.
'En'valeth seruun nar'kaeth.'
Rough, alien, as if woven from another time. Each syllable was like a tiny cut under the skin - a weight that could not be shed.
But they weren't the ones that bothered her the most.
The blood.
'Human blood.' - That's what the Spirit of the Forest had said.
Her blood.
She pulled up her sleeve, looked at her hands - strong, sure, and now slightly trembling. She had never liked giving blood. She never liked the thought of sacrificing something of herself.
And yet - no one else should pay for it.
It is her way.
Her choice.
She didn't like the thought.
She hated it.
But she knew one thing - she wouldn't drag anyone else into it.
She moved on.
The forest behind her closed quietly again - like a wound that never heals.
Birches grew close to people's houses. White, almost smiling with their pale trunks, oblivious to what Sharon had come for.
She chose one - tall, straight, with bark like milk. She touched it carefully, almost apologetically.
- Forgive me,' she whispered.
She cut quickly, efficiently. The branches were light, fragrant with freshness, quite different from what she carried in her heart. Different from what she was supposed to do.
But all she had to do was turn around and walk deeper to remember the truth.
The black oak was said to grow where something more than a body had died.
She found it after a long wandering. It stood alone, in the midst of a land scorched by sun and silence. Twisted, massive, half-dead. The bark was as black as night after a storm.
As she approached him, Sharon felt a chill - not the usual one, not from the wind. It was the chill of the soul.
The branch she wanted to take was hanging high - old, dry, as if it had been waiting for ages just for someone to break it off.
As she climbed up and reached for it, the oak snapped in a draughty manner. Like a warning. Like anger.
But Sharon didn't hesitate.
She broke off a branch - hard, dark, smelling of ash.
And she was gone.
Now it was time to move for the bones.
The old burial ground was not marked on any map.
Sharon found it by following her gut more than her wits. The stones lay crooked here, as if the earth had long since stopped taking care of them. Moss covered everything in a thick layer of green.
The bones were white. Clean.
They lay shallow - as if they themselves wanted to come out into the light of day.
She crouched by them.
She touched one - thin, delicate like a bird's wing.
For a split second she would have sworn she felt warm.
She shouldn't.
Not here.
But she didn't withdraw her hand.
She gathered as much as she needed.
And she walked away - without looking back.
Because the silence behind her was too thick.
Like the breath of something that didn't sleep at all.
The marshes waited.
They were not moving. They weren't breathing. But Sharon felt their presence, the way one feels a sight on the back of one's neck in an empty room. The air was heavy - damp, thick with the smell of wet earth and decay.
She walked slowly. Each step was deafening, as if she were treading on the dead body of the world.
She knew this place.
This is where it all began.
And this was where it was all going to end.
She reached the middle - where the ground was firmer, as if nature itself had left this place for something more than death. She spread things out: branches of birch and black oak crossed together, forming a symbol she remembered from a vision of the Spirit of the Forest.
She arranged the bones - white, silent - on the edge of the pile. A circle. A border.
She stood up.
She looked at her own hand.
She hesitated a moment... just a moment.
She cut the skin with the knife blade - quickly, evenly. Not for the pain. For the truth.
Blood fell to the ground.
The swamp trembled.
Not visibly - not like an earthquake - but she felt the ground drink her blood like a thirsty animal. As if she was just waiting for it.
She set the pyre on fire.
The fire ignited ... strangely.
Not red. Not yellow.
The flame was blue. Pale as moonlight on snow. Like death, which had not yet decided whether to leave.
The air trembled.
The shadows around her began to lengthen. Folding. Twisting.
Sharon took a breath.
And she spoke the words.
- En'valeth seruun nar'kaeth.
Arieth mor'vhael ten'dur.
Sii'lath venahr, drael mori.
Kharas eil'en... nael'therin."
Each syllable sounded like an alien sound, like something that should not exist in human mouths. The voice carried over the marshes, over the fire, over everything living and dead.
The ground groaned deafeningly.
Something moved.
Something crawled out of the mist.
A phantom.
Not the kind seen by those who passed her among the grasses.
A real one.
Tall. A man's shadow, long, as if stretched by pain and anger. Hair as long as seaweed. A face that was indescribable - fuzzy, torn by time. And in his hand - a sword. Long. Dead. Like himself.
The phantom howled.
Not like an animal.
Like something that had been snatched from its own slumber.
Like something that hurts existence.
- You... - dragged through the air, more like a thought than a sound.
Sharon didn't step back.
The fire burned faintly and shadows swirled around her.
She knew one thing.
The ritual had weakened it.
But it wouldn't be enough.
The phantom began walking towards her - slowly, heavily, like a shadow that had forgotten it was once human.
And then Sharon understood.
This was not the end.