The first days of travel passed like mist—half-remembered, half-felt.
Nyxia and Loque moved through forgotten trade roads where the forest wrapped around them like a green cathedral. Pines swayed high above, whispering in tongues older than stars. Ferns unfurled underfoot, kissed with dew and ghostlight. The air was laced with petrichor, iron, and the faint tang of distant storms. Here, time melted—measured only by the ache in her feet and the breath shared between steps.
Not every day demanded retelling. Some offered only the sound of boots on damp mulch, the hush of snowfall from overburdened branches, or the distant cry of an owl that sounded almost like a name.
But then came the strange moments. Brief, glinting, almost sacred.
One morning, a family of moth-winged deer watched from a thicket. Their antlers shimmered like moonlight caught in frost, eyes luminous and unblinking. They vanished in the space between blinks.
Another dusk, a thunderstorm coiled above the canopy, weeping across the treetops in a downpour that never reached the forest floor. Rain sang above them, and the woods below stayed dry. Listening.
On the third day, Nyxia slowed—not from fatigue, but awe.
They'd entered a clearing scattered with foxglove and black mushrooms, where wisps floated lazily in the air like drifting embers. At the center stood a tree—tall and contorted, bark gnarled into what resembled a face, mouth open in an eternal sigh.
Loque paused beside her, tail twitching.
"Once," he murmured, "that tree housed a minor spirit. A keeper of crossroads and safe trails. I think he's still half-asleep."
"Does he mind us passing?"
"Only if you steal his mushrooms."
Nyxia snorted, crouching low to brush her fingers along one of the glowing toadstools. "Noted." Her voice softened, touched with childlike wonder. "They hum."
She stayed a moment longer, listening to the hush of the clearing, then followed Loque onward. The scent of loam and wet stone deepened as the altitude climbed. Her breath frosted on the air.
That night, beneath a crescent moon, Loque broke the quiet.
"Do you remember when we met?"
Nyxia's lips twitched. "You mean when you tried to maul me?"
"You tried to gut me first," he said, amused.
She barked a laugh. "You leapt out of the trees like a damned specter. I thought you were some twisted spirit-beast. So I shot you."
"You hit my paw."
"Fair. You clawed my face."
"Also fair."
She reached up, fingers brushing the faint, arcing scar along her cheekbone—a pale crescent. A reminder. A trophy.
"You gave me this."
"Because you wouldn't stay down," Loque said. "You bled. Snarled. Screamed. And you still wouldn't crawl."
Nyxia shrugged. "Didn't know how to quit back then."
"You still don't."
They sat side by side in the frost-laced grass, stars scattered above like ash across velvet. Loque's tail curled over his paws.
"I respected you for that," he said. "You weren't the first to try. But you were the first who stayed on her feet."
She glanced at him. "I thought you were going to finish me."
"I considered it."
She smirked. "What changed your mind?"
"You cursed me even as you passed out."
Nyxia laughed again, a sound cracked at the edges. "Sounds like me."
"It is you," Loque said quietly. "Rough edges and all."
The forest changed by the next day—less green, more bone and granite. The trees no longer whispered. They groaned.
"I've seen gods fall," Loque said. "Wolves who could swallow suns. Spirits made of tides and wind. One by one, they rot. Fade. Their names devoured by new tongues."
"You think that's what's happening to me?"
He didn't answer at first. His spectral fur shimmered silver in the moonlight.
"You're not fading," he said. "You're becoming. There's a difference."
Nyxia kicked a pebble. "Becoming what?"
"Something that walks in both worlds."
He led her to a shallow stream. The surface shimmered not just with moonlight—but with something… other. The water mirrored stars that weren't in the sky.
"Watch."
Loque stepped onto the stream.
His body didn't vanish, but… changed. The edges blurred. He left no prints. His reflection rippled separately from him.
"You're in the spirit realm," she whispered.
"You can be too. In time."
He padded back and nudged her leg. "Close your eyes. Breathe with the land. Feel for the second heartbeat under the soil."
She tried.
Once.
Twice.
The third time, something stirred beneath her ribs—slow, deep, ancient. The wind stopped. Her breath caught—
And then pain. Sharp. Searing.
Ves's voice.
You'll never be clean.
Nyxia gasped, stumbling. Her hand gripped Loque's mane before she even realized she'd fallen.
He caught her. Steady. Silent.
"Not yet," he said. "But soon. The Void isn't the only realm with shadows."
They traveled slower after that.
Nyxia's steps dragged. Food lost all meaning. Her stomach rebelled, gnawed hollow by hunger she no longer noticed.
By the fifth day, the hallucinations began.
A whisper in the trees that sounded like her name.
A shadow with violet eyes.
A flicker of Ves's smile reflected in still water.
Loque stayed close, warmth at her heel, guiding her forward with gentle murmurs and unshakeable presence.
"One more ridge," he said. "Then the stair. Then Ash'myra."
And when the spires broke the horizon—broken towers wreathed in frost and memory—Nyxia felt no relief.
Only dread.
They made camp beneath the cracked ribs of an old stone arch. The scent of pine and clean air had vanished. Now it was marble dust. Cold ash. Old incense turned sour.
Nyxia barely touched her food. Her hands trembled too much to start a fire. Her eyes were hollow, fixed on a place only she could see.
"We're close," Loque whispered.
She nodded.
But her voice was quieter still.
"…Too close."