Chapter 50. The Burnt Oath

Aeryn tilted her head. She bent her knees, closed her eyes, and inhaled hoarfrost air. Then she spoke.

Her words were carved from the first stone, uttered before alphabets or borders—an ancient melody of sound that rolled off her tongue like river water. No living soul in the hollow understood its meaning, yet every heart quivered, every spine straightened, as though that language awakened a deep memory within them.

Aeryn allowed herself a single, faint smile.

Then she turned away from Thornroot’s sacred hollow—not toward the Council’s distant spires, nor back to the safety of the Pact’s waiting arms—but deeper into the womb of the forest. Beneath arches of moss-draped branches, she walked toward a place forgotten by all but the oldest spirits, where roots twisted into hidden caverns, and the earth still held the promise of what would come next.

***

The message arrived as smoke. Not ink. Not parchment. Not courier. Just a slender spiral of black ash dri