Chapter 58. Crimson Dismantled

She did not look back. Not once, even as the last shimmering chords of the Bone Choir faded into the hush of falling leaves, their spirit-voices swallowed by damp earth and moss. Not even when the winding trail narrowed, its gnarled roots and brush seeming to shift behind her, as though the forest itself rearranged for those it still remembered. She walked forward in silence, feet stirring wet soil, as if any glance behind would weigh her down with memories too heavy to carry. She had not forgotten the cost of what had passed; she simply knew some truths could only travel onward, never back to the wound where they first bled.

When she emerged from the dim, bark-lined hollow into the clearing where Thornroot still breathed its pale magic, the Pact was gathered there—no grand parade, no banners snapping in a windless night, but ragged clusters of bodies warmed by the dying glow of makeshift braziers. Each coiled ember pulsed like a wounded heart, sending thin ribbons of smoke in