“Stop fighting it,” he says, lower now, closer, the words directed at me, sounding less like command and more likesomething else I do not have the clarity to define. “You’re making it worse.”
“I don’t need?—”
“You do.”
The certainty in it leaves no room for argument.
I hate that. I hate more that he’s right.
The forest moves around us as he carries me, branches brushing against his shoulders, boots steady against uneven ground, each step grounded in a way I cannot replicate right now. My hand ends up fisted in the fabric at his chest without conscious decision, holding there because letting go feels like it would send me back into whatever is waiting just beneath the surface.
My breathing does not slow. Another vision slams into place.
We reach a clearing ahead where the ground opens into smooth stone, safe, stable, easy passage forward. I see us crossing it without issue. I see the path continuing. I see no threat.
Then the image shatters.
The same clearing. The same stone. Vaedros stepping forward, and the surface collapsing beneath him into a hidden pit lined with sharpened stakes, his body striking hard enough to break bone before I can reach him.
Then another. We never reach the clearing because something attacks from the side first.
My head spins. The futures will not settle. I cannot tell which one is real. I cannot tell if any of them are. Fear makes the decision for me.
“Stop,” I say sharply, grabbing Vaedros’s arm before he can take the next step toward the clearing.
He halts immediately, eyes snapping to my face. “Did you see something?"
“Not that way,” I say, forcing the words through the noise in my head. “We go around.”
He studies me, searching for precision.
“There’s a collapse ahead,” I add quickly. “Hidden.”
That part might be true. It might not. I do not know anymore. His gaze lingers a fraction longer, weighing, measuring, deciding.
Then he nods once.
“Show me.” he said and lowered me slowly to step down.
I turn left, away from the clearing, forcing my body into motion before doubt can paralyze me completely. The alternative path is narrower, less defined, choked with low branches and uneven ground that dips and rises unpredictably. It feels wrong immediately, the kind of wrong that sits heavy in the chest rather than sharp in the mind.
Vaedros follows without question. That should reassure me. It does not.
The forest closes tighter around us. Light dims beneath thicker canopy. The air grows damp again, carrying the faint sour scent of stagnant water hidden somewhere nearby. My skin prickles with unease that no longer belongs solely to instinct.
I made the wrong choice. I know it before the danger reveals itself.
The ground ahead looks solid, covered in leaf litter and low moss, but the weight of the air shifts, subtle and unnatural, and before I can form a warning?—
It gives way. Not a collapse downward. A rupture outward.
The earth splits open in a violent surge, something massive forcing its way through from beneath, soil and roots exploding upward in a spray of dark debris. A body follows, thick and armored, plated in dull chitin that reflects no light, its form coiling as it emerges, jaws opening wide enough to swallow a limb whole.
I react too late, but Vaedros does not.
His hand closes around my upper arm with crushing force, yanking me backward just as the creature’s strike tears through the space where I had been standing. The impact of his pull sends me off balance, my heel catching on uneven ground, and for a split second I am falling?—
Then his arm is around me, hauling me upright, pivoting my body behind his without hesitation.