It rained in the Dreadwood for three days straight.
Not the soft, cleansing kind of rain Elara remembered from home — but cold, sideways sheets of water that rattled against the windows and carried voices through the trees. Morgwyn said not to listen to them.
"They speak in promises," she warned. "But they have no tongues of their own. Only what they steal."
Elara stayed inside, studying.
There were new books laid out on the long stone table — spells scrawled in languages that moved on the page, alchemical notes bound in skin, and a single leather volume labeled A Compendium of Tethers and Bindings, Vol. II.
"What's a tether?" she asked Morgwyn, who sat by the hearth, sharpening a blade carved from black bone.
"A magical thread," she answered without looking up. "Not always literal. Sometimes it's blood. Sometimes memory. Sometimes regret."
Elara frowned at the page. "This one's talking about soul-tethering."
Morgwyn's sharpening halted.
"Close the book."
Elara blinked. "Why?"
"Because that's Dominion magic."
"I thought we were trying to understand them."
"We are. That's why I'm telling you — close it."
Elara obeyed, though her curiosity burned.
"You've been soul-tethered before," she guessed.
Morgwyn met her gaze, and the answer was in her silence.
By the fourth day, the rain stopped — but something worse replaced it.
Screams.
Far off in the forest. Echoing.
Elara flinched upright from her trancework. Morgwyn didn't move.
"Another?" Elara whispered.
The witch only nodded.
It had happened twice before — distant howls of pain from deep within the cursed wood. Each time, Fen would vanish for hours, only to return silent and blood-specked. Morgwyn refused to explain.
This time, Elara followed.
Not far — just to the tree line.
What she saw twisted her stomach.
A man, crawling on hands and knees, soaked and shaking. His eyes were glazed with madness. His clothes — Dominion robes — were torn and stained with rot. Something hissed under his skin, writhing like worms.
She gasped.
The man turned, and his face split — not from a wound, but from within, his jaw dislocating unnaturally. He shrieked with a thousand voices.
"Elara!" Morgwyn's voice cracked like a whip. "Get back!"
Then the spell hit.
A column of violet flame tore through the trees, slamming into the man-thing. He didn't burn — he unraveled, his body tearing apart like paper in a storm. The forest swallowed the scream.
And silence fell.
Back at the cottage, Elara didn't speak for a long time.
Morgwyn stood at the cauldron, whispering something low in a language Elara didn't recognize — more song than speech.
"What was that?" Elara finally asked, voice hollow.
"A tether-gone-wrong."
"You mean—"
"Dominion magisters experiment with binding magic," Morgwyn said flatly. "They tried to anchor their souls to power. It doesn't always work. The body remembers pain. The soul… doesn't forgive."
Elara gripped the edge of the table. "That man—"
"He wasn't a man anymore."
She didn't know if Morgwyn said that to comfort her or to warn her.
That night, Elara dreamed of threads — silver and black, coiling around her wrists, tying her to shadows with names she didn't know. One thread pulsed with heat — familiar, frightening.
When she woke, her palm was glowing.
Morgwyn was already by her side, eyes sharp.
"What were you dreaming?"
"I don't— I don't know." Elara stared at her hand. "It felt like… something reached back."
The witch muttered a ward, tracing sigils over Elara's skin. They sparked against her fingers.
"Elara," she said carefully, "has anyone ever tried to mark you magically? In your village? A ritual, a touch, a whisper?"
"No. Never." Then she hesitated. "Well… There was an old woman once. Just before I came here. She touched my wrist and said, 'The light sleeps inside you, girl. Don't let it go cold.'"
Morgwyn went still.
"Did she wear blue robes? Braided silver hair?"
"Yes…"
"Thorne Elvastra."
"You know her?"
"I know of him. Thorne doesn't speak without reason. If he marked you—" She cut herself off, rising. "I need to consult the Bone Mirror."
Fen's ears twitched. "That hasn't spoken since the moon split."
"I'll make it speak."
The Bone Mirror hung in the east wing, behind a door Elara had never dared open.
Inside, the air was colder. Heavy. Like grief pressed into stone.
The mirror itself stood twice Elara's height — framed in vertebrae and carved jawbones, with a surface like oil and glass merged. As Morgwyn approached, the floor trembled faintly.
"Only the dead can see what you ask," Morgwyn said, voice ritual-smooth. "But death still owes me answers."
She drew a blade — not to wound Elara, but herself. A single drop of the witch's blood hit the mirror.
It rippled.
Then it spoke.
"The girl bears the mark of the Last Oracle."
Elara's breath caught.
"She is seen. She is sought. She is not what she believes."
"What does that mean?" Elara whispered.
"A tether has been tied. The other end coils beneath Vel Ashen's ruins."
Morgwyn's face drained of color.
"Vel Ashen…?" Elara echoed. "That's your—"
"My city," Morgwyn whispered. "Where it all began."
The Bone Mirror faded.
Silence hung like a blade between them.
Morgwyn turned slowly. "You came here looking for a cure. But something called you here."
"I don't understand."
"The mark. The dreams. The pulse in your hand. You're not just caught in my story, Elara." Her voice trembled. "You are part of it."
Elara stood still, her heart thundering.
"You said I wasn't meant to be ordinary."
"You aren't."
Elara met her gaze, steadier now. "Then teach me what that means."
Morgwyn stared at her.
Then — slowly, carefully — she reached out, and took Elara's hand.
Their tethers — seen or unseen — pulsed between them.
And for the first time, Morgwyn whispered not a warning… but a promise.
"Then we go to Vel Ashen."
END OF CHAPTER 5