Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-One
Wynessa
We continued through the Bone Orchard, but the forest was no longer familiar. It had shifted, taking on a new, unsettling aura than the last.
Where once the trees grew tall and skeletal, here, they curled inwards, their gnarled trunks and branches fusing into a grotesque, organic dome.
Above, the sky was a distant rumor, barely visible through the choked foliage.
The path ahead was not merely overgrown; it was entombed beneath a writhing mass of thorn-laced vines that pierced the ground like insistent claws.
“It’s called the Thorn Maze,” Gideon rasped, a tight grimace pulling his lips into a thin line. “Not exactly subtle.”
I glanced at Erindor, clearly chafing under the unwanted burden of leading the way.
“Alaric insisted,” he muttered, arms crossed. “Said we’d make better time if we cut through instead of circling the ridge.”
At that, Alaric, already sweating, shrugged dramatically. “And I still say we could. Unless you’d like to climb back up that hill we just slid down on our backsides.”
“It’s cursed,” Jasira said, voice flat.
“It’s efficient,” Alaric replied with a mock cheer.
Erindor studied him.
Alaric grinned. But no one else laughed.
The silence was heavy, broken only by the creak of thorns shifting in the breeze.
“I’ve heard stories,” Gideon muttered, staring at the curling vines. “Which say someone summoned this maze instead of growing it. Ages ago, a priestess of Vireya built it to catch souls. To give them to the flame.” He glanced at me briefly, then turned away.
Jasira crossed her arms. “Fantastic. A soul-trapping hedge maze.”
“It’s not just thorns,” Gideon added. “It pulls memories. Feelings. If you’ve got something buried inside, it’ll find it.”
We stood silently for a moment.
“I still believe we could get there faster,” Alaric said again, with less confidence.
We all knew this was a bad idea, but no one wanted to argue anymore. The days had worn us down. Our group moved like tired ghosts now; wary, bruised, and half-afraid to hope for peace.
I hesitated at the threshold. The vines covered not only the ground; they arched above us, forming a dense tunnel. A maze made not of hedges but of bramble, ancient and unnatural. Somewhere within, I thought I heard something moving.
“Stay close,” Erindor said quietly, adjusting his grip on his blade.
I fell beside him. “You don’t think this is a terrible idea?”
He glanced at me, almost as if apologetic. “Every idea has been terrible lately.”
And so, we stepped in.
We walked single file, since the path was too narrow for anything else. The thorn walls rose high on either side, woven too tightly to see through, too jagged to force our way back. The brambles pulsed faintly green, and the leaves didn’t rustle like normal ones; they hissed.
The further we went, the more unsettling it felt.
The air grew thick, sticking to the back of my throat like smoke. Light filtered oddly here, bending at strange angles as if the maze itself didn’t follow the rules of the sun. Sometimes the light came from above. Sometimes it seemed to come from the ground.
A curve. Then another. The turns came too frequently, too sharply. There were no landmarks. No sky. No birdsong. Only the wet scrape of boots, the breath, and the hissing of leaves.
The thorns didn’t stay still. They shifted. Not enough to notice right away, but I felt it in my bones—the way they leaned inward, the way they seemed to breathe. Roots curled shyly away from our feet. Vines moved along the walls like veins.
The quiet around us felt both sacred and cursed. We should have only been walking for minutes, but my throat was already dry, and sweat coated my back. Time didn’t seem real here, as if something had swallowed it.
That was the moment I heard my name.
“Wynessa…”
I froze, a primal instinct locking me into place as my heart hammered a frantic rhythm. “Did someone say something?”
Erindor, ahead, turned his head slightly. “No one’s talking.”
I shook my head, forcing a laugh that barely escaped. “Must’ve been the wind.”
Alaric, farther ahead, muttered something, but I didn’t catch it. Another bend in the path and—
A faint, dry scraping sound heralded the movement of the thorns.
It was subtle, almost elegant. A whisper of motion that shouldn’t have been possible.
The vines on either side of me twisted inward, knitting together like closing eyes.
The way behind me sealed in seconds, then the space ahead constricted too, cutting me off. Isolating me.
“Alaric?” I called, stepping forward. “Erindor? Jasira?”
Nothing.
Then, muffled: “Wyn!”
Erindor’s voice, faint through the hedge.
“I’m here! I’m—It closed! The path closed!”
“Stay right there! We’re coming to find you!”
I stepped toward the wall of thorns that had separated us and pressed a trembling hand against it. It pulsed faintly beneath my palm, like it had a heartbeat of its own.
“Don’t move!” Alaric’s voice now, distant but urgent. “Wyn, just—keep talking. We’re close.”
I opened my mouth to speak, to answer, but the hedge rustled violently, and their voices vanished.
The silence was absolute, the kind that pressed against your ears and made you hear your own blood moving. My pulse was too loud. Too fast.
I spun in a circle. The path behind me was gone. Only thorns remained.
I took a shaky breath. My heartbeat thundered in my chest. My palms were sweaty, and my knees felt weak. I had never felt so utterly skin-pricklingly alone.
Then the voices started.
“You’ll break them.”
My stomach clenched and twisted as I spun around in circles, trying to catch the voice.
A new one, this time far colder and familiar in the worst way. My mother.
“Softness is a liability, child. You were born wrong for a crown.”
“No,” I whispered. “You’re not here.”
“You can’t even lift a sword without trembling.”
“You’ll lose them all.”
“No,” I yelled.
“You’ll die, along with everyone else.”
I pressed my hands to my ears, but it was as if the voices came from inside my bones. They vibrated in my ribs, behind my eyes.
“You’re pathetic.”
“You don’t deserve the crown.”
“He won’t ever love you. He won’t ever feel for you.”
A dozen whispers now, overlapping fragments of fear, pieces of old doubts. My mind spun. I staggered forward and tripped, hitting the mossy path on my hands and knees.
Tears stung my eyes, and my chest was rising and falling rapidly. I couldn’t breathe. My throat clenched like a fist. My thoughts raced—panicked, chaotic, sharp-edged. I wasn’t enough. I’d never be enough. What if they were right? What if I wasn’t meant for all of this?
“I don’t know who I am anymore,” I whispered, the words trembling from my lips like a secret I’d never dared say aloud.
Then a fresh voice broke through, rough and achingly kind.
“You don’t have to be sure. Keep going.”
It was Erindor’s voice.
But it couldn’t be. He wasn’t here. It was only what I wanted to hear.
Still, my heart held onto it.
I closed my eyes, trying to breathe, but even that wasn't easy. The maze twisted the air, thickening it with thorns and sorrow.
A cold dread seized me, making me tremble uncontrollably.
I wasn’t a warrior. I wasn’t brave.
I was a girl with blood on her hands and a fire she couldn’t understand.
And I was all alone.
“You’re not alone.”
The whisper didn’t originate from my memory this time. It came from here. From the maze itself or the thing inside it. A voice that carried something older than language.
I opened my eyes.
A luminous moth hovered just inches from my face, pulsing with gentle golden light.
Then another emerged from the thorns.
Then another one.
They moved ahead, not quickly or frantically, but as if waiting for me.
“Wait—where are you…?” I stumbled upright, catching my breath.
The moths fluttered once and flitted forward.
With my heart pounding, I followed.
The moths led me to a hollow in the earth, narrow and deep. A natural basin sat beneath the woven canopy of the thorn maze, where moonlight barely reached, but something older thrummed beneath the surface.
The brambles pulled away as I approached, though they kept watching. Roots like ribs overgrown in the clearing, all tangled and cracked.
At the center stood a stone altar.
Covered in moss and clawed vines, it looked older than anything I had ever seen—older than Wildervale itself. Its surface bore the same fire-etched markings I’d seen on the canyon stone. They faintly glowed when I stepped close, pulsing like embers beneath ash.
Something called out to me.
I trembled. My fingers curled at my sides. A sudden weakness buckled the knees, an involuntary tremor that echoed the frantic tightening of the fingers at the sides.
“I don’t want this,” a desperate whisper escaped, aimed at the empty air or perhaps the unseen force that had delivered me here. “I didn’t ask for power. I didn’t ask for voices or visions.”
The thorn-covered altar pulsed once beneath my feet.
The air grew sultry.
Then I remembered the dream, the one I’d had after the Singing Stones. The fire curled around my hands. The words whispered like a secret prayer: You must give it freely. One must believe it.
My gaze shifted to my palm. I opened my hand. But it was empty.
Was that the price?
I stepped forward and placed my hand on the altar.
It burned cold.
A gust of wind twisted around me, and then the thorns shifted. Tighter coils, curling inward like claws. They didn’t block the path; they just watched, waiting.
“You want truth,” I breathed. “Fine.”
My voice shook.
“I’m terrified. I don’t understand what’s inside me.
I don’t want to carry it. I want to go home.
I want my life back. I want my mother to love me and my kingdom to be safe and…
” My throat tightened, a tear forming in my eyelid.
“And I want Erindor to look at me like I’m not a crown waiting to be given away. ”
Silence.