Moonlight filters through ancient oaks.

The vision carries you beyond the city walls, into the wild places where Thornwen made her home. The Sacred Grove. Trees older than Eldermoor itself stand sentinel here, their branches woven together into a living cathedral. The air smells of moss and night-blooming flowers and something older – the green breath of the earth itself.

You move through the grove like a shadow. Your hand rests on the blade at your belt. You have done this before. You know how it ends.

You find her kneeling beside a wounded deer, her hands glowing with soft green light as she mends its shattered leg. Flowers bloom in her footsteps, even here, even now. She is everything the others are not – gentle, true, uncorrupted.

She does not turn as you approach. But she speaks.

“I wondered when you would come.”

The deer rises on its healed leg and bounds into the darkness. Thornwen watches it go with a sad smile before finally standing to face you.

“Seraphine warned me you would silence us. She told me everything. The Binding of Souls. The ritual you’ve been planning since before we ever laid the first stone of Eldermoor.” Her eyes meet yours without fear, only an infinite weariness. “We were never founders to you, were we? Just fuel for your immortality.”

She gestures at the grove around her. The trees seem to lean closer, listening.

“I’ve walked this land for longer than you know. I’ve seen empires rise and fall. Tyrants come and go. They all think they’re special. They all think they’ll be the one to last.” She shakes her head slowly. “They never are.”