Chapter 169: Moonlit Truth

Elira

One long, agonizing week had passed.

The forest ahead waited like an open, festering wound that simply refused to heal. It was the same cluster of twisted, ancient oaks. The same damp, cold ground that carried the heavy smell of rot and old, buried secrets. The same pale moonlight threaded silver and cold through the skeletal branches above.

I knew I should not have returned here again. I had walked this exact, dark path a dozen times beside Wane, and each time, ...