The path to the Mirrorwood began behind Bramblehollow's last standing stone—a moss-covered monolith etched with weather-worn runes none in the village could decipher. It was said that the forest beyond it was once sacred, where fey walked freely and whispered secrets to those who listened. Now, even the bravest hunters avoided it.
Caelum did not travel alone. Thorne, the elder, had chosen two others to accompany him: Lira, the village weaver, and Bram, a stoic woodcutter whose family had guarded the old borders for generations. Maelis packed them light—herbs for warding, dried bread and salted fish, and a pouch of moonwort sewn inside Caelum's cloak.
The morning air was thick with fog as they left. Bramblehollow receded into mist behind them, its warmth exchanged for the tense hush of the outer moors.
"It's never this quiet," Bram muttered, gripping the haft of his axe. "No birds. No wind."
Caelum felt it too—that unnatural stillness. The earth beneath their boots no longer hummed with the subtle life he'd grown used to. It was as though the moor was holding its breath.
As they crossed the threshold into the Mirrorwood, a strange shift came over the world. The trees grew closer together, birches and oaks twisted by age and shadow. The canopy let in fractured light, turning everything a pale green, as if they were walking underwater. Thin strands of lichen drifted from the branches like hanging spirits.
Lira pressed her fingers to a tree's bark and flinched. "It's cold. But… not just temperature. Like it's forgotten warmth."
Caelum stepped closer, placing his palm against the same tree. He didn't flinch, but his heart beat faster. There was something deeply wrong. Not malevolent—just wounded. Like the wood was grieving.
They walked for hours, and the trail gradually narrowed into a deer path. In places, it vanished entirely. But Caelum followed something else—not a path, exactly, but a pull. A quiet tug in his chest, like a string drawn toward something old and waiting.
By midday, they reached a clearing. In its center stood a ring of standing stones—weathered, some cracked, others fallen, overrun by ivy and root. The wind stirred as they approached, brushing the tops of the grass like a sigh.
"This place," Bram said under his breath. "My grandfather said it was where the first pact was struck."
Lira knelt, tracing the runes on one of the upright stones with the hem of her sleeve. "These are fey script," she said softly. "But I only know a little. This one… I think it means 'reflection.' Or maybe 'remembrance.'"
Caelum circled the ring slowly. His footsteps stirred dry leaves that crackled louder than they should. In the middle of the stone circle, the grass grew short and silver, brittle like frost.
He stopped.
"Do you feel it?" he asked.
Lira nodded slowly. Bram shook his head but gripped his axe tighter. "I feel eyes on my back."
Then, the wind changed again—and with it, a whisper. Soft. Elusive.
"Stay," it seemed to say. "Listen."
Caelum crouched and placed his palm on the soil in the center of the ring. For a long moment, there was nothing. Just silence and the slow rhythm of his breath.
And then—a sound. Faint and distant, like the echo of water dripping in a cave. It grew louder, resolving into layered voices—not speech, exactly, but memories. Feelings. Regret, longing, reverence. The trees murmured. The stones vibrated faintly beneath his touch.
He saw flashes—not visions, but impressions:
—A fey hand in a mortal's, clasped in ceremony under the moonlight.
—A pond filled with light, offering sanctuary.
—A broken promise, spoken in desperation.
—And the fading of something once bright and sacred.
He opened his eyes. Lira and Bram watched him in silence.
"It's not just imbalance," he said quietly. "It's a fracture. Something was broken here. A vow."
Lira looked down at the rune again. "Remembrance. Reflection. It's asking us not to forget."
Caelum stood, brushing earth from his knees. "We need to find the rest of the old pact—if it still exists."
"Where would it be?" Bram asked. "No one's seen fey openly in years."
Caelum turned to the trees. "Not openly, no. But they're still watching. We need to speak to them."
Bram scoffed. "And how do you plan to do that? Shout at the wind?"
"No," Lira said quietly. She pulled a small silver bell from her satchel. "My grandmother gave me this. Said to only ring it at dusk, in a place the fey remember."
Caelum nodded. "This is such a place."
They waited in the circle as the light dimmed. Dusk fell slowly in the Mirrorwood, but when it came, it was sudden—a purple shroud that muted the last birdsong.
Lira rang the bell.
The sound was soft, but it carried. A pure, lingering chime that didn't fade. It seemed to ripple outward, brushing the edges of reality. The grass around the stones stirred as if breathing.
A figure appeared between the trees.
Not a person. Not clearly. It shimmered, a silhouette of drifting silver light, vaguely humanoid, with antler-like protrusions of living bark and a face veiled in mist.
Bram tensed. Caelum raised a hand, gently.
The figure regarded them without eyes, but they felt its gaze.
"We come to restore," Caelum said, voice even. "To understand what was lost. Why the glimmerlings are fading. Why the land grieves."
The figure tilted its head.
A voice came—not from it, but around it. Echoing, layered, like wind through chimes.
"You are not of this world," it said to Caelum. "Yet you carry its sorrow."
Caelum stepped forward. "I have felt its pain. I want to help."
"You walk in the shell of old promises," it murmured. "The pact lies buried. Forgotten by your kind."
"We want to remember," Lira said, stepping forward beside Caelum.
The figure raised an arm of light and bark. From the center of the stone circle, a bloom of glowing moss burst from the soil. Within it lay a fragment of something once whole—a shard of a crystalline tablet, etched with ancient script.
"Then begin here," the voice said. "But beware. Memory is not without cost."
With that, the figure dissolved—unraveled like mist in wind.
Silence fell once more.
Caelum knelt and gently lifted the shard.
It pulsed faintly in his hand.
The journey had truly begun.