The forest welcomed him with open jaws.
Branches clawed at his face as he tore through the underbrush, the sound of hoofbeats now a dull thunder behind him. Every breath burned. Every step sent agony through muscles too recently dead. But he didn't stop. He couldn't.
The riders did not speak. They only followed.
As darkness thickened, the trees grew stranger—twisted like bone, their bark a patchwork of scars and symbols. The forest floor steamed with strange mist. Insects glowed dimly between roots. The man stumbled through it all, sword in hand, until he collapsed beside a tree with a hollow trunk.
The hollow whispered.
A voice, soft as moth wings: "You stink of the grave."
He raised the sword, chest heaving. "Show yourself."
The tree's roots shifted. A figure emerged—not from behind the tree, but from within it. A woman, old and hunched, her robes stitched with feathers and moss. Her eyes were white as snow, blind yet piercing.
"A dead man wearing a king's crown," she said, circling him. "A blade that hums with the name of gods. And death on your heels. Curious."
"I don't know who I am," he said. "But they want me dead."
She sniffed the air. "You are not who you were. But you are who you will become."
He frowned. "What does that mean?"
The witch smiled, revealing teeth like splinters. "It means the world is not what it was. Time has frayed. The crown you wear is not of this age. And the sword..." She touched it lightly. The blade flared with pale fire. "...belongs to something older than kings."
The riders' presence pressed closer, a shadow on the edge of the forest.
"Help me," he said.
She raised an eyebrow. "Help a nameless man with a cursed crown and a stolen sword?"
"Yes."
The witch grinned. "Good. I hate being bored."
With a flick of her wrist, the forest shifted. Roots coiled around the path. Fog thickened into walls. The sound of hoofbeats vanished.
"You'll need a name," she said. "And a reason to keep that heart beating."
"I just want answers."
"Then we begin with the lie," she said. "The lie that shaped a kingdom—and killed a king that never lived."