The wind along Oberon’s Wall tasted of endings. Its cold bite caught in the edges of Gwyn’s furs, laced itself into the cuts along her back, and whispered across the burn-marks on her arms. She ignored it. Pain was familiar. What unsettled her was the silence. The wall should have roared with voices, with the sounds of soldiers' drills and the calls of sentries. But as she and Bedwyr passed beneath the arched gates, the world held its breath.

Eyes followed them, not out of malice, but out of unease. A Ray of Dawn, her furs still slick with the filth of the Spirit Glade. A Soldier of Dusk, his usual charm subdued, his silver blade yet to be cleaned. There were no cheers, no nods of respect. Just the knowledge that two of the strongest Fae had walked into the forest and returned looking like survivors of something none had seen in a thousand years.

Bedwyr tilted his head upward, catching a familiar constellation, the Sea Dragon’s Crown and quietly hummed under his breath. Not even the stars gave comfort. “We are being watched,” he said softly, not to Gwyn, but to the stones. The ancient magic embedded in the wall pulsed subtly, reacting to his presence like a memory stirring from sleep.

Skif met them near the barracks, wings dull with fatigue. She landed on Bedwyr’s shoulder with none of her usual flair, as if the weight of what she carried pressed her from the air. “Something’s wrong,” she said plainly. “The villages in the Silver Vale report sickness. Trees bleeding. Dreams of fire. And something else.” She looked at Gwyn, her voice almost faltering. “A shadow with wings. Black as regret. Circling above the valleys.”

Gwyn said nothing. She simply looked to the west, toward the distant stretch of forest where the Dread Drake slept beneath unspoken fear. Then, without turning her head, she muttered, “I’ll see him.” Her voice didn’t crack. It burned.

Bedwyr raised an eyebrow, mildly impressed. “Not even a jest? You truly must be shaken, fair lady.” The smirk never reached his lips. He studied her profile for a moment longer before nodding solemnly. “Very well. We go to Galahad.”

Skif fluttered to the ground, her brow furrowed. “Wait, Galahad? The Galahad? I thought he disappeared. Didn’t he go mad?”

“He walked away,” Bedwyr said. “Which, among our kind, is rarer than either madness or sainthood.” He pulled his coat tighter, the fabric seeming to ripple with night’s own silk. “He left when the Courts still played at peace and war, when the Songs still held sway. Before everything began to rot at the roots.”

Gwyn adjusted the blade on her back, the weight of it suddenly more noticeable. “And now you think he’ll teach me?” Her voice held no disbelief, only challenge.

“I think,” Bedwyr said, meeting her gaze, “he’ll see the burn in you and know what it cost him.” His tone was stripped of sarcasm, naked and honest. For a flicker of a moment, Gwyn saw the age behind his smile, not in his face, but in the sorrow behind his eyes. Then, with a theatrical sweep of his arm, he turned toward the southern path, where the trees bent in unnatural reverence.

The journey south led them beyond the stonework symmetry of Oberon’s Wall and into the embrace of the twilight woods. Not the wild rage of the Forgotten Forest, but something older still, a place where light did not dare choose a side. Here, dawn and dusk kissed in quiet harmony, casting the world in hues of gold-drenched shadow. Gwyn slowed, for even her battle-hardened instincts whispered caution.

The trees stood like ancient sentinels, wide as towers and twisted with ivy and memory. Wind moved differently here, more like a breath than a breeze. Between the roots of a willow that wept silver tears, Bedwyr stopped. He knelt, pressed a palm to the earth, and whispered. Not words. Notes.

The ground pulsed once in response, and the glade answered.

It unfolded around them, not like a place, but like a song being remembered. Where once there had been only woodland, now stood a grove of stone pillars, each carved with sun sigils dulled by moss. A pool sat at its heart, reflecting nothing but starlight, even in daylight. And beside it, a lone figure knelt in meditation, unmoving, sword across his lap like an oath yet to be broken.

“Galahad,” Bedwyr said softly.

The dwarf’s eyes opened, not quickly, not with surprise, but with the calm inevitability of someone who had already known they were coming. His gaze, amber and weathered by decades, settled on Bedwyr first, then Gwyn. He did not rise. He simply said, “So. The flame has come seeking stillness.”

Gwyn stepped forward cautiously, the weight of her boots seeming louder in the sacred stillness. “You knew we were coming?”

“I know when fire walks too close to dry wood,” Galahad replied, eyes steady. His voice was like gravel, not cruel, but unyielding. “And I can feel the blaze in you, girl.”

She bristled at the word girl, her spine stiffening. “I’m no child. I’ve stood the Wall. I’ve bled for Talonia. I’ve killed things older than you.”

“Ha! I doubt that,” Galahad murmured, finally rising, “you nearly killed yourself in a corrupted glade with rage on your lips and acid in your wounds.” He stood smaller than Bedwyr, broader than Gwyn expected, his simple tunic doing little to hide the old scars across his arms. “Glory does not impress me.”

Bedwyr stayed silent, arms folded, watching like a man who had seen this before and didn’t dare interrupt it. A victorious smirk on his handsome face. 

Gwyn clenched her fists. “I didn’t come for a lecture. I came to learn.”

“Then unlearn first,” Galahad said sharply. “Because what you call strength is a beast you’re riding bareback. Sooner or later, it throws you. Or worse, it learns to ride you.”

She opened her mouth to fire back, but Bedwyr raised a hand gently, hiding the smutty remark that came to mind.

Galahad continued, voice softer now. “There is power in you, Gwyn. Enough to crack mountains. But fire without form is only destruction. You want to protect the Spirit Trees? Face the Dread Drake? Then I will teach you not how to fight… but how to stand without burning down the world around you.”

Gwyn’s jaw flexed, but she nodded. A storm stilled. “Then teach me.”

Galahad gave the faintest of smiles, not pride, not encouragement, just acknowledgment. He turned, motioning toward the starlit pool. “Place your blade beside the water. No steel between you and what waits.”

Gwyn hesitated for only a heartbeat, then drew the great sword from her back and laid it down. The ground hissed softly as the blood-soaked leather of the handle grip touched the grass. She stepped to the pool’s edge, her reflection rippling beneath the surface, strange and flickering in the mirror of stars.

“This is the Waters of Resonance,” Galahad said. “You will not fight me. You will fight the part of yourself your aura feeds, the shape it would take if it broke free. If you are not afraid of yourself, then you should be.” He placed one palm on her shoulder. “Close your eyes.”

The moment they did, the wind died. Sound fled. There was no forest, no pool, no sky. Only silence, and then the echo of her heartbeat, louder, faster, building like drums before a charge. When Gwyn opened her eyes again, she was no longer in the glade.

She stood in a void of smouldering gold and white, smoke rising in slow spirals from cracked earth. And across from her, standing in the same stance, was herself, taller, armoured in flame, face a mask of rage and triumph. This version of Gwyn was not scarred. She was perfect, terrible, radiant.

And she was smiling.

The other Gwyn moved first, fast, impossibly so. Her greatsword blazed in her hands like a sun turned to steel, and the ground cracked beneath her charge. Gwyn barely dodged in time, throwing herself to the side as a cleaving strike shattered the air where she'd stood.

She rolled, came up ready, fists clenched, but no weapon in reach. “That’s cheating,” she muttered.

The echo grinned, her teeth bared, not laughing, but goading. Then it spoke, and the voice was hers, deeper and resonating with fury. “I’m here to win, to bury your weakness. Release me!”

The next blow came low, meant to maim. Gwyn caught it with both forearms, feeling the shock rattle her bones. Heat burned into her skin, and she growled through the pain, shoving the flaming reflection back. It slid, then halted, unaffected by momentum. Its fire never dimmed.

“I’m not afraid of you,” Gwyn spat, circling, heart pounding.

“You are me,” they whispered. “I am the part that does not fall. That does not doubt. The one that doesn’t need the bard to sing her back to life.” It pointed, and behind it, shifting images formed. The glade, the slug, her collapse, the pity in Bedwyr’s eyes, the worry in Skif’s.

Gwyn surged forward with a roar, tackling them, fists flying. The blows landed, but so did the counterstrikes. Every punch she gave, she received, bruises bloomed, lips split, fire seared into her lungs. But she didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop.

Until they caught her by the throat.

“You only win when you burn out, Gwenhwyfar. You don’t want to master the fire. You want to become it.”

Gwyn choked, fury flashing behind her eyes. Then, for the first time in battle, she stilled, not from weakness, but from clarity. Her hands stopped flailing. Her muscles stopped fighting. Her aura, so often wild, began to quiet.

“I want to choose when I burn,” she rasped.

And suddenly, she was free.

The echo faltered, grip loosening. Cracks spread across its radiant skin like broken glass, light leaking from within. Gwyn stepped back, watching as her mirror self staggered.

“Then choose,” they said, and smiled, not with cruelty, but with... pride?

It shattered, dissolving into golden cinders.

The void fell away like smoke on the wind.

Gwyn’s knees hit the grass hard, her hands sinking into the soil by the pool’s edge. Her breath tore from her lungs in ragged pulls, and the scent of earth, real earth, filled her senses. Not ash. Not fire. Just moss, and dirt, and cool air touched by starlight.

Galahad stood beside her, unmoved. Not judging. Not comforting. Simply waiting.

She lifted her head slowly, strands of sweat-matted black hair falling into her face. Her eyes locked with his, and for once, she didn’t feel the need to rise. She had fallen in battle a hundred times before, but never like this. Never willingly. Never to herself.

“Did you break it?” Galahad asked.

“No,” she whispered. “I… let her go.”

A breath of wind passed through the glade, and it felt like approval.

Behind them, Bedwyr exhaled, a sound so quiet it might have been mistaken for wind. But his eyes shimmered faintly with the kind of pride he would never say aloud. He watched her with the reverence of a bard who had just witnessed a verse write itself into legend.

“Was it enough?” Gwyn asked, her voice hoarse but steady.

“No,” Galahad said. “But it was a beginning.”

He extended a hand. She took it.

And for the first time since the trees began to die, Gwyn didn’t feel like a weapon waiting to be swung, she felt like something forged.

Night had settled like velvet across the glade, thick with the scents of pine sap and old stone. The stars above were more vivid here, as though Galahad’s grove remembered how to listen to the heavens. Bedwyr had built a small fire between twisted roots, its light catching the polished edges of his silver blade as he laid it gently across his lap.

Gwyn sat opposite him, her greatsword resting nearby for once, untouched. A small kettle hung over the flames, steeping something herbal and sharp. Her hair was damp, freshly washed from the spring nearby, and she looked... quieter. Not smaller, but more contained, like a forge banked for the night.

“Did you dream, when you fought her?” Bedwyr asked, breaking the silence gently.

“I didn’t sleep,” she replied. “But yes.”

A pause. He nodded, tossing a small stick into the fire, watching it crackle. “She looked like you, didn’t she?”

“Perfect,” Gwyn said bitterly. “She didn’t bleed. She didn’t break. She wasn’t tired. I’ve wanted to be her for so long, I didn’t realise I’d made her real.”

Bedwyr looked across the flames at her, his voice low. “There’s no story in perfection, fair lady. No songs. Just monuments. And they always end up cracked and covered in moss.”

Gwyn smirked faintly. “You always this poetic, or does the fire make you soft?”

“The fire makes everything honest,” he said, pouring tea into two worn tin cups. He passed one to her, careful not to touch her hand, as if some part of her was still cooling. “Tell me, then. What’s left of her inside you?”

Gwyn sipped, winced at the bitterness, and swallowed. “Everything,” she said. “But now she’s quiet. I don’t want to kill her anymore.” She glanced at him, eyes narrowed with something like gratitude. “That’s your fault.”

“I’ll add it to the list,” Bedwyr smiled, a little sadly. “But you did the hard part, Gwenhwyfar. You listened. Most of us never do.”

She scoffed at the use of her full name then stared into the flames a while longer, watching the way the light danced on the silver of Bedwyr’s sword. “You said I listened,” she said slowly. “Like you’ve done it before.”

Bedwyr took a sip of his tea, winced, and smirked. “Oh no. I never listened. Not until it was too late.”

She waited.

He didn’t look at her when he continued, his eyes fixed on the fire, his voice quiet but sure, like someone finally setting down a weight. “I was younger than you when I first felt what aura could really do. Not in a duel. Not in training. In celebration.”

Gwyn tilted her head. “Celebration?”

“The Midvein Festival. Dusk’s great revel, wine, flesh, dancing, magic. We called it the Night of Unending Want.” A bitter laugh. “We filled the air with song, let our auras flow freely. Mine, well, is what it is.”

He finally looked at her now, and there was no charm in his expression. Only regret.

“But aura is infectious. The more I gave, the more they took. And the more they took... the more they burned.” He set the cup down. “I thought it was joy. I thought we were gods in that moment.”

Gwyn’s brow furrowed, uncertain of where this was leading.

“By dawn, six were dead. Two dozen were left broken. They’d followed my music, my pull, and drowned in it. Some willingly.” His voice was nearly a whisper. “I don’t know what’s worse, the ones I didn’t mean to hurt… or the ones who begged me to keep going.”

The fire crackled in the stillness that followed. No wind stirred.

“I left the Court that morning,” he finished. “Not because I was exiled. Because I couldn’t sing without wondering who I might ruin next.”

Gwyn looked at him, truly looked. The bard, the flirt, the blade that danced like moonlight. She saw, beneath it all, a Fae who had once sparkled too bright and now feared the light among the shadow.

“You still sing,” she said.

He gave a tired smile. “Because someone has to.”

A twig snapped in the darkness behind them.

Both Gwyn and Bedwyr turned, hands on instinct, moving toward steel, but it was only Galahad, emerging from the treeline like a shadow that chose to take form. His expression was grim, the calm carved into his features now touched by urgency.

“You need to come,” he said simply. No riddles. No metaphors. Just the weight of immediacy in every syllable.

Bedwyr stood at once, already tightening the straps on his sword belt. “What is it?”

Galahad looked to the stars above, then back at them. “One of the Dryads has fallen from the sky. She burns with prophecy and frost. And she’s speaking in tongues that haven’t been heard since the Song first cracked.”

Gwyn was already moving, the tea forgotten, her fatigue forgotten. “Where?”

“The hollow just north of here,” Galahad replied. “The starlight led her there.”

Bedwyr frowned. “That place has no song.”

“It does now,” Galahad said, already turning back into the night.

And the three of them vanished into the trees, the echo of the fire left behind, its light now a memory against the dark.

They moved swiftly, but the forest slowed them.

Not with branches or thorns, but with the weight of silence, a silence so complete that even the crickets dared not sing. The trees here were older than memory, their trunks twisted like grief, their leaves blackened at the edges as though scorched by dreams. Each footstep felt like trespass.

Gwyn felt her aura recoil against the edges of the place, like it knew something her mind refused to grasp. Her hand hovered near the hilt of her sword, but she didn’t draw it. Not yet. The sound of steel here would feel like blasphemy.

Even Bedwyr was silent, his usual wit strangled by the thick air. His eyes flicked upward from time to time, not to the canopy, but beyond it, as though searching for stars and finding none.

“The Hollow,” Galahad whispered finally, and they stopped at the edge of a shallow depression in the earth. No birds stirred. No wind moved the tall grass that rimmed its edge. Only a soft, pulsing glow from the centre, cold, white-blue, like moonlight trapped in ice.

A figure lay there.

From this distance, it looked like a statue carved from pale wood and starlight, hair drifting like water in unseen currents. Her limbs were twisted like roots, and frost rimed the tips of her fingers. When she spoke, it was not a language, it was sound, rising and falling like broken chords from a forgotten melody.

“Do not step in yet,” Galahad murmured, his eyes hard. “This is not a place for mortals.”

Gwyn’s throat tightened. “She’s not mortal.”

“No,” he agreed. “But something else is watching. Waiting.”

They stood on the edge of the Hollow, the last echoes of prophecy seeping into the still night air, and something ancient, buried beneath the soil and frost, exhaled.