Thar’Delar Forest was no place for civilized elves. Nor for humans. Nor, truth be told, for anyone with a healthy attachment to their own continued existence.

  Broad leaves, wide as shields, whispered in unfamiliar tongues. Vines hung like lazy claws, swaying in a wind that seemed to breathe turn back with every step.

  And yet, she walked.

  Barefoot.

  Naked.

  Alone.

  Or at least, that was how it would appear to any careless observer.

  For beside the pale-skinned elf, her hair black as the abyss, two forest wolves padded in silence—creatures the size of moose, with fangs that could snap columns like dry branches. One on each side. Like sentinels.

  A rare white raven circled lazily overhead.

  Every so often it descended to perch upon her shoulder, gently pecking at her ear… only to take flight again, as if offended by her lack of response.

  Jasmin yawned.

  Her gaze wandered into the thick mist ahead.

  “Twenty-seven different mosses today,” she murmured, studying a grotesquely twisted trunk. “None fit for eating.”

  An albino squirrel sprang to her leg and offered a shriveled almond. She accepted the gift with a solemn nod. The squirrel performed an exaggerated bow and vanished into the brush.

  Yes.

  After wandering for days—or weeks… or months?—guided only by flashes of intuition and a warm breeze that seemed to whisper keep going, she had stopped counting time. Sunrises and sunsets were nothing more than flickers of color in her fogged mind.

  But that afternoon, the sky turned leaden, and the scent of heavy rain arrived like swallowed thunder.

  That was when she saw it.

  A colossal tree, its trunk hollow and curved like a natural tunnel, marked with weathered elven signs—shelter, silence, protection.

  An ancient refuge.

  She entered.

  Thick moss muffled her steps. Interwoven branches shielded her from the wind. A small depression in the ground sank slightly underfoot, as if someone had slept there once—perhaps another elf, a hundred… two hundred years ago. Perhaps herself, in another life.

  Rain came down hard.

  And for the first time in centuries, Jasmin felt cold.

  She curled in on herself, arms wrapped around her knees with the same desperate grip someone uses to cling to their last scrap of warmth. Her bare skin trembled in the forest’s damp chill, and the moss beneath her seemed to drink her vitality like an indifferent green blanket.

  The wolves lay nearby—no growls, no sudden movements—only living shadows on guard. The white raven tucked its head beneath a wing, as if respecting a grief too ancient to disturb.

  Outside, the world roared—distant thunder, rain tearing through the canopy. But inside the belly of that hollow tree, only the echo of emptiness remained.

  Silence.

  And tears.

  They came without warning, without permission.

  They slid down her pale face, burning like invisible scars.

  They soaked her knees.

  They vanished into moss that swallowed them without comfort.

  “Three hundred years…” Her voice was a frayed thread, nearly devoured by the sound of rain. “Three hundred years without crying… without feeling…”

  The faint freckles beneath her left eye glimmered in the bluish light filtering through wet bark, as though even her skin shared the ache.

  She did not sob. There were no screams—only tears, flowing with the quiet inevitability of rain down a forest trunk: silent, ancient, heavy as entire eras compressed into drops.

  The Mountain Heart had freed her from an eternal prison, but not from the abyss it left inside. It had saved her body, not her soul. And still… she was alive.

  She had chosen to be alive.

  She lay there, in that vegetable cavern that cradled her like tomb and cradle at once. Rain sang a lullaby against the leaves outside, and the wolves’ warm breath covered her like a living blanket.

  Deep down, the past remained—buried, never forgotten.

  And against all logic, against all weight, something bloomed at the edge of her lips.

  A smile.

  Small.

  Trembling.

  But real.

  …

  Jasmin dreamed.

  And she knew she dreamed—because there was no sky, no ground, no time.

  Her body floated like a lost feather, suspended in a gentle summer breeze that had never existed. There was no pain in her bones, no scars upon her soul. Only warmth.

  Soft, comforting warmth… like an embrace that demanded nothing in return.

  She lifted her gaze.

  And he was there.

  The Mountain Heart.

  Did it have a form?

  Perhaps.

  Perhaps it was a living mountain of stone and root. Perhaps a man made of light.

  Or perhaps it was only… a smile.

  Yes. That was it. A smile.

  Gentle. Ancient. Tranquil.

  The kind of smile parents save for when their grandchildren stumble, then learn to stand again on their own.

  He said nothing.

  But Jasmin heard him.

  Not with her ears—within her chest.

  A voice made of warmth, like dry leaves swept by a soft autumn wind.

  She reached out her fingers.

  She wanted to touch.

  But he was breeze, and breeze cannot be held.

  “You…”

  She tried to ask, but her voice died before it was born.

  The warmth deepened. A breath at her nape, then at her shoulder.

  A respectful warmth that did not burn—and yet was impossible to ignore.

  Like the gaze of someone who loved in silence.

  “Are you… truly real?”

  The smile did not fade.

  The breeze rose in delicate spirals around her legs, her arms, her throat. Her whole body tingled—not with fear, but with confusion.

  This was the god her mother had called cruel.

  The entity who demanded three lives every hundred years.

  Three priests who offered themselves smiling… and burned.

  Sacrifices accepted. Bodies consumed. Souls swallowed.

  People said that was how he protected the kingdom. That blood and fire were the price of benevolence.

  But that smile?

  That smile asked for no blood. No pain.

  Only… understanding.

  Jasmin closed her eyes.

  And memory came.

  The hush of the crowd. The ash-covered altar. Fire devouring bodies.

  Her mother—wearing the elven crown—turning away, her smile twisted.

  And the Mountain Heart… doing nothing.

  No punishment. No demand. No destruction.

  The forest did not burn. The world did not tremble.

  Jasmin frowned, lost between faith and lie.

  And then—she felt it.

  Arms.

  Or something like arms.

  Warmth enveloping her whole, firm but gentle, like support.

  Why did you save me? she thought.

  The Mountain Heart’s smile curved ever so slightly—softer, almost human.

  And deep within her soul, Jasmin felt something tremble.

  He… was he weeping?

  “Wait… you are…”

  But his voice never came.

  Only a distant echo, as if he spoke from within a millennial cavern where time swallowed sound.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  She could only feel.

  Warmth.

  The invisible weight of his gaze.

  A breeze scented with wet moss and living leaves.

  And that smile—always that smile.

  Gentle. Patient. Sad.

  Her eyes watered. She reached again, in vain.

  “I still don’t understand…”

  Then, like a petal carried by wind, her consciousness began to dissolve.

  The dream-world unraveled into silence and shadow.

  And Jasmin fell asleep inside her own dream—

  held by the breath of a god who burned,

  and by a smile that asked for nothing.

  …

  Jasmin awoke.

  If she had been sleeping.

  Moisture clung to her skin; droplets traced the contours of her naked body, sliding along her shoulders and into the soft embrace of moss. The earthy scent of the refuge-tree surrounded her—comforting as an old childhood blanket, yet weighted with a time that no longer existed.

  Above her, there was no visible sky, only broad rain-soaked leaves swaying lazily beneath persistent drizzle. The white raven, perched high on a branch, gave a short croak—almost a bored greeting.

  Jasmin blinked slowly.

  Then she looked at the wolves still sleeping around her, like living shadows made of fur and fangs. A canine yawn. An ear twitch. A snore that sounded, briefly, almost human.

  They were all there.

  Faithful as the forest.

  “…So I remain,” she murmured, to no one in particular.

  Silence answered with distant thunder, followed by a warm breeze that brushed her cheek.

  She smiled without meaning to.

  When she sat up, her body felt lighter than she remembered—like she had forgotten the weight of her own existence.

  “Three centuries…” she whispered, as if reading a number etched upon a tombstone.

  She placed her bare feet on the ground. The earth was cold, but alive. Beneath her toes, she felt the tree’s faint pulse, as though the forest’s heart had woken with her. She murmured a few words in ancient elven—thanks, farewell.

  The tree replied with the slightest tremor of branches.

  It was time to leave.

  But…

  There was a small problem.

  “I am… still unclothed,” she said, her brow creasing faintly.

  The white raven turned its head to stare at her. For a moment it looked as though it had something to say.

  Fortunately, ravens remained mercifully unburdened by speech.

  She rose with the sort of elegance only elves possess, even when covered only by what nature could offer—an ineffective arrangement of leaves, long hair, and absolute shamelessness.

  She gestured lightly, and small animals—squirrels, shrews, and one very skinny fox—scattered among the roots, obedient as if answering an old habit. The forest still recognized her as its own.

  As she tidied the refuge—stacking dry leaves, murmuring protective spells with the calm of someone making tea—her thoughts drifted.

  Perhaps… perhaps it had all been a bad dream.

  Perhaps she was still in the palace.

  Perhaps she would open her eyes and find her brother huffing that she had missed archery practice again.

  Her father, with that statue-still bearing… smiling only with his eyes.

  Her mother… holding her. Sweet arms. A firm voice.

  Jasmin stilled.

  Her smile faded.

  The warm breeze passed again, silent consolation.

  “Mountain Heart…” she whispered.

  The one who had saved her.

  The one who burned priests alive… and yet smiled like sunlight through mist.

  A god or a monster?

  A gentle presence… or serene, heated death?

  She did not know.

  But she wanted to.

  Soon, Jasmin moved.

  Light feet, nearly soundless—touching the world as if out of courtesy.

  Before long, she found her bow-staff, exactly where she always left it, caught between roots and dressed in lichens and flowers. When she touched it, the plants loosened as if they had only been sleeping.

  She breathed in.

  And the old instinct stirred.

  Her green eyes glimmered faintly; her pupils narrowed like a predator’s. She felt the wind’s direction. The soil’s dampness. The marks of animals—deer, badgers, an old fat boar.

  And then—

  “There,” she murmured, with a quiet spark of delight. “Footprints.”

  Civilized. Human, perhaps… or elves.

  Three, four days old.

  And then she remembered—

  she had no idea what the world looked like now.

  “Do humans still insist on trousers?” she wondered aloud, balancing along a fallen trunk.

  A sound. A pause.

  A squirrel slipped from a branch.

  Jasmin caught it midair and set it gently back against the bark.

  “And you,” she asked with mild seriousness, “would you bring me a pair, if I requested it?”

  The squirrel answered with a scandalized noise and fled, dignity wounded.

  Gradually the forest grew less dense. Rain fell in thin, constant curtains. Trees lowered. The terrain flattened. Jasmin walked with her bow-staff as support, wet hair clinging to her skin, improvised leaves making a noble and mostly unsuccessful effort to preserve ancestral dignity.

  She stopped before a moss-covered stone shaped like a face—perhaps an old forgotten idol. She touched it, only to feel the memory held in stone.

  Images flickered.

  Blood. Fighting. Fallen cities.

  Children with bright eyes and sharpened teeth.

  The world had changed.

  Jasmin inhaled slowly.

  “I suspect I shall require more than simple clothing,” she murmured.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  Rain thickened.

  She quickened her pace, a faint corner-smile returning.

  Even soaked, even lost, even naked in a forest that did not fully recognize her anymore… Jasmin kept walking.

  Because deep within her chest—right where the emptiness lived—

  the warm breeze still guided her.

  …

  Rain no longer punished the forest.

  It only whispered.

  A lazy murmur, as if even the clouds had grown tired of weeping.

  Jasmin moved between wet roots and weeping leaves, each step sinking into mud to her ankles. Her unclothed body, unadorned, was decorated only by mud, sweat, and a few discreet scratches. She carried her bow-staff, her gaze cool… and that warm breeze.

  A silent guide.

  A whisper by her ear: Just a little farther, child. Soon you will find shelter.

  And she did.

  Among trees arched by time and thick with moss, a small cabin appeared. More stone than wood. More memory than home. Moss swallowed the windows, vines devoured the roof, and the scent was… abandonment.

  But a gentle abandonment.

  As though the house had waited, patient, for someone to return.

  The iron handle yielded with a long groan. The door opened onto dust and stillness.

  Stillness… except for the soft clink of a forgotten spoon rocking against the rim of an old iron basin.

  Jasmin smiled—rare, soft.

  “Someone lived here,” she murmured. “Many winters ago.”

  She explored with light steps: a bucket with dried soap, hides folded in a corner smelling of dried rue; a canvas pack; a sturdy rope; a tent still wrapped; a hunting kit—knife, hatchet, even a small leather apron.

  The clothes were too small, but elves were nothing if not adaptable.

  With vines, she turned worn trousers into a layered wrap-skirt. The shirt she adjusted with firm knots and quick charms, and the oversized boots became almost-stylish greaves.

  She lifted her chin and studied her reflection in the tub.

  “Ancient hunter fashion,” she declared. “A bold spring-to-autumn statement.”

  She laughed softly into her hand.

  Then she plunged into the tub’s cold water, scrubbing away mud and blood until only the forest’s scent remained. She washed her long hair, brushed her teeth with charcoal and dried mint.

  For a moment… she felt alive.

  But the breeze changed.

  It was no longer a warm caress.

  It became heavy.

  Too warm.

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “…That is not good.”

  Howls.

  Roars. Screams. Bones breaking.

  Jasmin sprang from the tub, bow-staff already in hand, and ran toward the sound.

  The forest trembled.

  And when she arrived, her heart trembled too.

  One of the giant wolves that had accompanied her lay dead, throat torn open, eyes gone blank. The other still fought, surrounded by blood and desperation—biting, retreating, roaring, refusing to yield.

  Against that.

  The creature was a colossus—larger than an elephant, yet moving with the ease of shadow. Its skin was black and wet, dripping like oil. Its eyes were burning slits. Its paws were blades that clinked with every step.

  And its mouth…

  its mouth multiplied.

  Too many teeth to count, all meant to shred flesh, bone, and soul.

  Jasmin’s stomach turned. There was no time for pain.

  No time to weep.

  “Arcane Arrows!”—Dozens of light-born projectiles formed around her, chiming like crystals before they launched into the beast.

  It roared. The arrows carved glowing rents into oily flesh, but it kept coming.

  “Earth Spears!”—Jasmin struck the ground with the staff’s end. Roots erupted like spears, tearing through soil and stone, piercing the creature’s body.

  She ran. Leapt. Triggered arcane traps. Raised thorn-chains that coiled like living serpents.

  Each spell burned away a portion of her.

  Each drop of Soma drained made her slower, weaker.

  But she did not stop.

  Not until her knees hit the mud.

  Panting. Blood on her lips. Rain pouring into her open mouth.

  The beast approached without haste. Each step made the earth groan.

  “Tch…”

  She tried to rise, but her body refused. The bow-staff slipped from her fingers.

  So this is it? she thought.

  The warm breeze vanished. The world seemed to freeze.

  “You… saved me,” she whispered, tears mixing with rain, “and I will die here?”

  The creature growled—low and heavy, like mockery with a throat.

  A suffocated laugh.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured, barely audible. “To die like this. Perhaps… I was not what you expected.”

  She closed her eyes.

  Waited for pain.

  It did not come.

  Silence lasted seconds.

  Perhaps minutes.

  When she opened her eyes—

  The creature was dead.

  Torn apart, shredded like paper. The ground sank beneath it as though struck by something monstrous.

  And atop the corpse stood a great beast.

  Majestic.

  Half owl, half lion.

  A griffin.

  Its chest rose and fell calmly. Its claws still dripped blood. It licked itself with the lazy composure of a cat, as if the carnage were an inconvenience, not an event.

  Then its immense eyes fixed on her.

  Ancient.

  Curious.

  Gentle.

  Jasmin blinked.

  “…Hello,” she said, quietly, as if greeting the forest itself.

  The griffin leapt with impossible lightness and landed before her. One wing opened—warm, firm—enveloping her like a cloak.

  Safe. Silent.

  “You are not a Purrnio,” she murmured. “Are you?”

  The creature only watched her.

  No answer.

  But she knew.

  This was something far beyond.

  “Zarpheon,” she whispered, and the name arrived like an old memory.

  She did not ask how she knew.

  Not now.

  With difficulty, she rose, leaning against him. She wept—not in desperation, but in brief release.

  Together, they returned to the cabin.

  Zarpheon lay at the entrance like a guardian.

  Jasmin treated her wounds with ancient salves, repaired part of her improvised skirt, and lit a candle.

  There—barefoot, hair still damp, heart aching—she prayed.

  “Lunis… Sissifus… beloved moons who light the night, guide the hunters. Thank you for the beasts who protected me. Receive their souls into the turning cycle. And may this forest accept me as its daughter… one last time.”

  The smile that formed on her lips was small, tired, and sincere.

  The smile of someone who had lost much…

  and endured.

  She fell asleep to the sound of rain, beneath the vigil of an ancestral griffin, in the arms of a beginning.

  …

  The scent of the forest felt different that day.

  Jasmin awoke early, though her body still complained of yesterday’s wounds. The sky, once gray and weeping, now opened in blue fragments between tall branches. She blinked slowly, feeling the breeze on her skin and the persistent dampness of the ground beneath her back.

  “Mm… alive,” she murmured, with a faint smile. “A better beginning than yesterday.”

  Zarpheon slept nearby, curled in a more feline form, purring softly like a cat with an allergy to silence. His fur was warm and heavy, like an enchanted linen blanket.

  The white raven—who insisted on perching in inconvenient places, such as the crown of Jasmin’s head—scratched at the earth beside a damp trunk, feathers slightly bristled as it watched the griffin with passive-aggressive distrust.

  Jasmin sat up and flexed her fingers.

  Stronger.

  Quicker.

  Each day, a little more returned. The sound of her own arrows cutting through wind. The dance of arcane snares among ancestral trees. The taste of silence before the perfect ambush. It was as though her soul, locked away for centuries, had finally begun to breathe again.

  She packed with methodical precision—rolling the tent, storing the salves she had prepared, and adjusting the canvas pack across her shoulders. She improvised a sheath for the hatchet and fitted her hunting knife along the side of her boot.

  “Well,” she said, “if I am to die today, let it at least be with a measure of grace.”

  Zarpheon stretched slowly, wings unfurling with a faint feline sigh, then hopped to her side in his medium form—roughly lion-sized, and slightly beyond what one might call discreet for a long walk.

  The raven chirped.

  “I know,” Jasmin replied, nodding. “I, too, have noticed that we are hungry.”

  …

  Finding the boar was easy.

  Outrunning it was rather less so.

  “Zarpheon,” she called, breath sharp, “now would be an excellent moment.”

  Jasmin rolled aside as the horse-sized boar hurled a young tree into the air. She seized her bow-staff in both hands, sprang onto a mossy boulder, and sent a luminous arrow straight into its left eye.

  “My apologies, noble spirit of the forest,” she said calmly. “But you are terribly appetizing.”

  Zarpheon descended like black-and-gold lightning, driving the boar aside with outstretched claws. Jasmin rolled again, snatched up a wild potato that had nearly been trampled, and lifted it with quiet satisfaction.

  “Well then,” she observed. “The forest provides a side dish.”

  …

  Twenty minutes later, the boar roasted slowly over an improvised fire, turning on a woven frame of branches strengthened with natural magic. Jasmin stirred a small pot where an orange slime dissolved gradually among the potatoes, releasing a sweet, faintly spiced aroma.

  “I call this… explosive slime-and-root soup,” she murmured, tasting the tip of her spoon. Her expression remained solemn. “It is dreadful. Let us pretend otherwise and focus on the benefits.”

  The raven pecked at a roasted mushroom. Zarpheon devoured a boar leg with a satisfied purr and half-lidded eyes. Jasmin ate in silence, looking up through gaps in the canopy.

  “Thank you, spirit of the hunt,” she said softly. “May your soul return to the forest’s cycle in peace.”

  She closed her eyes for a brief moment. Then wiped her lips with cloth and wrapped the remaining meat in enchanted leaves stitched with vine. She arranged everything with quiet, relentless precision.

  When she rose, the raven took flight first—a white point in diffused light—and Zarpheon followed with soft steps.

  …

  The trail climbed.

  Each step carried her out of the living tangle of the forest and toward the open gray mountains that cut the sky like forgotten ramparts. The wind was colder here, and it carried the scent of salt.

  “Bretalia…” she murmured. “Do they still call you that?”

  Below, in the shade of the slope, a city spread like a carpet of white marble between turquoise canals. Slender towers pierced the sky; golden domes gleamed with the sea’s reflection; immense statues rose at the gate like divine sentinels.

  The place pulsed.

  Like a song of welcome.

  “Lionnes…” she whispered again, then frowned. “Or… what was it? Dal… Dalmacia?”

  The raven shrieked indignantly from the stone above.

  “Dalmastia,” she corrected gently. “Yes. I remember now. Forgive me.”

  She leaned on her bow-staff, her gaze calm… but alive. For the first time in centuries, she was not merely breathing.

  She was moving forward.

  Zarpheon sniffed beside her, wings still folded, eyes fixed on the city.

  Jasmin smiled.

  “Come,” she said. “Before they decide to charge a toll for luminous eyes and the scent of wilderness.”

  And she descended the slope with the wind at her back, the rain finally easing…

  and a new fate waiting ahead.

  ?