Torvil sat still for a time, his fingers laced together atop his knee, his eyes watching Brann as if he might change again, become something else in the candlelight. Then slowly, a wide grin crept across his lined face, and he shook his head.

  “Well, boy,” he said at last, voice half graveled laughter, half bone-deep weariness, “you’re more screwed up than I ever imagined.”

  He leaned back in his chair, a creak from the old wood sounding like it had been waiting centuries to speak.

  Torvil studied him for a long moment, then asked, voice low, “You really remember nothing of this world?”

  Brann shook his head once, silent.

  Torvil snorted softly, “This world’s not kind to those who forget, lad it doesn’t wait and it doesn’t care. But sometimes... sometimes forgettin’ lets you see things fresh. Without the lies you’ve been told your whole life and maybe that’s a gift. Or maybe it’s a curse, wrapped in good timing.”

  “I can’t make sense of all you told me, not fully, but there are a few things I can piece together.”

  He raised one finger.

  “First, you struck the heart of a forest that was not yet fully corrupted, while the druid was still soul-bound to it. From the way you describe it the will of the forest was fighting its own keeper. But it was losing, that’s the only reason your blow struck true. His protections had frayed.”

  Another finger lifted.

  “Second. A man without magical shielding who strikes at a heart like that, should be a corpse before he draws breath again, but you lived. Which tells me this: the forest didn’t want you dead. No... it sent you, it opened the gate, twisted the path, and dropped you where it could whisper into your bones. That jungle…it was primordial, a prototype perhaps, something that was never meant to survive the turning of the world. Even I have never heard tales of such a place.”

  He raised a third.

  “The creature with the red eyes you met in that jungle, it wasn’t a druid. Not anymore. If it ever was, the thing’s soul has long since gone to rot. That was something older, something soaked in corruption so deep that life itself recoils. The hooded man on the other hand... now he might’ve been a druid once. If he truly sought that forgotten place, then he followed forbidden paths. Paths I don’t even know how he found. Perhaps… if you follow his instructions, you’ll get your answers. But that’s a talk for another day.”

  He paused, his eyes flicking to Brann’s right hand as he lifted a fourth finger.

  “That black stone you touched, it wasn’t just cursed or enchanted, it was crafted. A key. A master key, likely... forged to open doors not meant for mortals. But the ritual was incomplete, a miscalculation of the power needed it seems. However the power meant for the stone - It bled into you somehow. Now the key and bearer are one. I do not know by what process that occurred, the hooded man was playing with runes and enchantments he had no control over.”

  He let his hand fall into his lap, rubbing the knuckles with a thoughtful frown.

  “And that leads to the fifth: the doors. We have tales of them, old ones. Gates that lead to other realms, but they can’t be opened by force, only by invitation… or the right key. That stone was such a key, but the price is always paid in blood or soul. He didn’t finish the binding, so it drinks from you now, from your essence. That’s likely why you slept for four days, cold as a corpse and twice as pale.”

  Torvil’s voice softened now, though a shadow crossed his features. “And lastly... that thing that took Oakrin? That was kind of your fault.”

  Brann flinched. Torvil saw it, but did not waver.

  “It sensed your power, lad. That first night you came to Westmere’s Tip, it felt the ripple, you brought here a power that you knew nothing about, something new. It drew near the river, crept beneath the earth like a worm through rot. But it would not cross, not yet, it was both intrigued and scared. If you had crossed, you’d have been its prize, but Riven did and it saw its chance.”

  Torvil sighed, and for the first time he looked tired, old, in the way trees are old.

  “But there is one more thing that doesn’t sit right,” he muttered. “That arrow, it came from the forest. And whatever shot it... wasn’t with the creature at first. Druids don’t use bows. They shape the earth, command beasts, twist wind and bark. But this... this was a bowman. And when that arrow struck, the creature hesitated, like a dog sniffing its master’s scent.”

  He met Brann’s eyes, the glow in his gaze now faint embers rather than fire.

  “You're tangled in more than you know, Brann, the Jungle, the forest, the doors, and something, someone, else out there hunting the same truths. If Oakrin still breathes, he’ll be tied to it too. And we must find him before whatever waits finds you first.”

  Brann listened in silence, chin low, eyes shadowed beneath his brow. When Torvil finally stopped speaking, the echoes of ancient truths still lingering in the candlelit chamber, Brann said quietly, yet with steel in his voice, “Now it’s your turn.”

  Torvil blinked at him, as if pulled from far-off memories, he huffed, slow and tired, then gave a half-shrug, half-nod.

  “I suppose there’s no hiding it now, not from you, at least.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the flickering flame catching in his eyes, green, old, knowing. “Yes, I was once a druid or rather, a disciple, in the early days of my arrogance. That was long ago.”

  He straightened his back, and his voice grew more formal, almost as if reciting a lesson once burned into him under moonlight and leaf-shadow.

  “There are two, perhaps three, paths a druid may walk to seek power. The first is simple, but terrible. You take it. You conquer. You rip strength from living things, animals, yes, but men too, the greater the soul taken, the greater the surge of power. Murder becomes the mightiest offering but when you consume another soul… you do not consume it whole.”

  He looked at Brann now, and for a heartbeat, his face was solemn and haunted.

  “The soul you steal bleeds into yours. Their memories, their fears, their dreams… they stain you. And if you’re not strong, iron-strong, you lose yourself. Your will becomes a muddle of other lives, other voices. Then you are no longer master of your will, and you can’t master a forest so you are swallowed by it.”

  Brann said nothing and Torvil went on.

  “That is why so few druids survive their first challenge. Too many choose the fast path and attempt to bend a forest too early, before they are ready. They fail and they vanish.”

  He raised a hand now, fingers spread like roots against the candlelight.

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  “The second path is slower. It is the way of patience, you do not take, you become. Through training, meditation, acts of valor and deeds that stretch the soul, forge it through fire and pain…through war, through loss. Every worthy act deepens the soul until it grows vast, like a sea. That kind of soul doesn’t yield, it bends the world to its will.”

  He smiled faintly now. Not warm, but sad.

  “I chose that path. Or I tried. That is why I came to the kingdom, to walk as a man, not a monster, but the path of the soul is long, and love found me first. Then came despair. Perhaps that was part of the forging, too.”

  Brann’s voice was quieter now. “What happened?”

  Torvil sighed. “Not much. Not at first. I fell in love, with the fiercest, kindest woman I’d ever known. We had a child, a girl: Lysa, the light of my life.” His voice faltered. “And then…my love was gone, an accident, a cruel one. All my knowledge, all my gifts, and I could do nothing, I buried her with my own hands.”

  Brann looked down. “I’m sorry.”

  Then his brow furrowed. “Wait, you said a child. What about Riven?”

  Torvil’s gaze lifted. “He is not mine by blood.” There was no hesitation in his tone, only certainty. “We found him one morning at the foot of the bridge. He couldn’t have been older than three. He was covered in cuts and bruises, crying and shaking. We never found who left him there. But he was alone and broken so I took him in and raised him as my own.”

  His voice steeled. “He is my son.”

  Brann nodded. There was nothing else to say.

  A long silence passed between them. Then Brann, brow still furrowed, asked, “You said there was a third path a hidden one. What is it?”

  Torvil’s face grew dark. Shadows danced across the lines of his weathered cheeks, the flicker of the candles turning his features grave and ancient.

  “The Gauntlet,” he said. “That’s what they call it. A path not walked by the soul of the druid… but by the souls of others.”

  He leaned forward, voice lower now, like something that should not be spoken above a whisper.

  “A druid may, instead of absorbing souls directly, bind them. Stack them, so to speak, into an object, a vessel, a blade, a stone…a totem. When you trap hundreds of souls together, the pressure of them, so many thoughts, memories, emotions, begins to build. It becomes a storm, a war of identity. It is very hard to keep them from escaping…you don’t want them to escape because they will curse everything in their vicinity, and you could suffer a fate far worse than death”

  His eyes flicked up, glinting.

  “At first it’s madness, a churning maelstrom, but over time… something strange begins to happen. The souls begin to merge and the chaos settles, eventually, a single new soul is born. A being forged of agony, memory, and power, a hollow soul, stripped of identity, stripped of purpose, only raw might.”

  He stood now, walking slowly in a circle around Brann, voice turning to iron.

  “When that moment comes, the druid must choose. He may attempt to absorb the hollow soul. If he succeeds, he gains unimaginable strength. If he fails… the soul consumes him instead. The body lives on, nearly immortal. But the mind is gone. A hollow human”

  Brann’s breath was slow, heavy. “Are those hollow humans dangerous?”

  Torvil stopped walking and looked him in the eye.

  “Most of them remain dormant for millennia until the energies dissipate and the body finally rots away but a few go berserk and then you have a creature of power without purpose. A being that walks the world with no master only instinct so it becomes a plague, a doom cast upon the world…”

  He didn’t finish the sentence.

  “In all my travels”, Torvil said, his voice deep and distant, as though echoing from some place far beyond the cellar’s stone walls, “I have never met a druid who walked the third path. Not one who lived to tell the tale, at least. But the world is vast, Brann, too vast to chart, too wild to tame, so who knows.”

  He paced slowly now, his hands clasped behind his back, boots whispering against the worn stone. “Men live like frogs in puddles, small kingdoms, fenced behind walls, trying to push the green back with fire and axes, inch by inch. Most never leave their borders. They’ve no idea how many others are out there, struggling just the same.”

  Brann’s brow furrowed, but he remained still.

  “They try to build roads, trade routes to bind one kingdom to another, but those roads are dangerous, the forest swallows them without notice. A paved path means nothing to the wild. In mere days, roots break the stones and branches swallow the sky. If a caravan becomes trapped and vanishes, no word reaches back. Only silence.”

  Brann leaned forward, the weight of it all pressing on his shoulders. “Then… why?” he asked, his voice quieter than before. “Why are the druids trying to kill us all?”

  Torvil turned to him, slowly. His expression was unreadable at first, then settled into something older, sadder. “Because,” he said at last, “they believe it is right.”

  He put his arms on Brann shoulders just as a teacher would before a pupil too young to grasp the cruelty of truth.

  “It is their faith, Brann. They dream of a Green Paradise, one forest, vast as the world, unified under a single Heart, a Heart with will enough to grant all things. A forest that feeds, heals, shelters, even dreams for you. In such a world, there would be no hunger, no war. No want. No need. But for that world to exist, this one must die.”

  His voice deepened.

  “They see men as corruption, cities as infection, machines as blasphemy. The weak, those without magic, they see as beasts, no better than oxen or hounds. Some druids toy with them, as a boy might pull wings from flies, but they are wrong Brann, a Heart like that, if one could even exist, won’t be controlled by any will, it would be the other way around, the Heart would control everything including them, like beasts part of the green, that’s why I set on my own path, their paradise is just a pretty lie”

  Brann’s hand curled at his side, trembling slightly, he looked down at it, the one touched by the black stone. He could still feel it, as if ice pulsed in his veins instead of blood.

  “Can you teach me?” he asked, eyes rising slowly to meet Torvil’s.

  The old man blinked. For a heartbeat, he said nothing. Then his lips pressed into a thin line, and a slow breath left his chest. “You’ve no spark of magic,” he said. “No training, and yet you stood before the Heart of a corrupted forest and lived. You touched a black stone meant to tear the soul apart, and it changed you, but did not break you.”

  He stared harder now, as though trying to see the shape of Brann’s soul beneath his skin.

  “I’ll try,” he said at last. “But I make no promises, boy. Power, true power, is not given. It’s earned in fire and forged in pain.”

  Brann nodded. The cold in his hand had reached his shoulder now, and it pulsed, not with numbness, but with something deeper, like a tether being drawn tight.

  Torvil stepped closer and lowered his voice. “First thing we do is create a link between your body and the nature around you. That bond must be real, or all the rest will tear you apart.”

  He reached into the folds of his worn tunic and drew a small, curved knife. Its edge gleamed like bone polished by centuries. “I must carve a rune onto your flesh, the mark of the druids. Then I will chant to bind it to your soul. Where would you like it?”

  Brann hesitated.

  His gaze dropped to the blade, then to his hands, one pale and cold, the other trembling slightly. Was he truly going through with this?

  He didn’t even know who he was. What right did he have to take on new power when he hadn’t uncovered the old?

  But deep within, beneath the confusion, a current ran strong and steady. He wanted to know, not just the truths of this world, but the why of things, the shape of its lies and forgotten memories. And if this was the only road forward, then he would walk it. Even if it led through pain.

  He pulled back the tattered sleeve on his right side and pointed to his shoulder.

  “Here.”

  Torvil gave a quiet nod. “So be it.”

  He pressed the tip of the blade against Brann’s skin. It bit with a flash of cold fire, tracing slow, deliberate lines. Brann clenched his teeth but made no sound. The rune took shape, a triangle enclosing a perfect circle, and with each stroke, he felt as if something ancient were being opened within him, like the unlocking of a door long buried beneath stone.

  Then the chanting began.

  Torvil’s voice dropped into a deep rhythm, a drumming pulse in a tongue Brann did not recognize. The words didn’t echo in the air, they sank into it, like rain soaking into soil. The rune burned, then blazed, and Brann’s veins felt full of something green and wild. His fatigue lifted like mist at sunrise. Strength surged through his limbs, his muscles taut with new vitality. Even his thoughts sharpened, like a blade honed to a killing edge.

  The chant ended.

  Torvil stepped back, his brow damp, his breath steady but heavy.

  “It’s done,” he said. “You are now an initiate of the druid order. That mark binds you to the green paths, whether you walk them or not.”

  He pointed a finger at Brann’s chest. “But do not be fooled. You’ve only taken the first step. There are still chants to learn, curses to speak, sigils and songs and secrets you’ll carry like weights on your soul.”

  Brann exhaled, slowly, his heart pounding in time with something older than himself.

  “You’ve been given a seed,” Torvil said, voice low and grave. “But if you try to wield its power now, raw as it is, it could consume you. Or worse.”

  He turned away, but his last words hung in the stillness like smoke:

  “Nature gives. But it remembers what it lends.”

  After a short moment he said “We must go now, Kett will be looking for you and if I know that old goat, he’ll already have the search party armed and half-formed.”

  He reached for a candle and snuffed it with his fingers. “Come. Time waits for no man. And neither does the forest.”