Audree’s wrapped arm tingled faintly. Not hungry, not pulling, but interested. Greed did not flare like it did in Embershade fights. It rose in a quieter way, like curiosity with teeth.

  The ground under his boots shifted.

  Then the plants moved.

  Thorns burst from the undergrowth in a fast, defensive bloom, not growing so much as snapping into place. Bramble vines lashed across the path, sharp enough to cut cloth. A thick coil whipped toward Audree’s chest like a living rope.

  Audree jumped back, barely avoiding it.

  “What the hell!” he hissed, drawing his wooden sword out of instinct.

  The vines reacted to that motion too, as if any readiness from him was proof he deserved restraint.

  Lief raised his staff, startled but controlled. Verdancy flowed into the soil in a calming push.

  The vines hesitated around him.

  Audree noticed that immediately.

  They struck at Audree with no pause, but around Lief they wavered, as if unsure whether he was a threat.

  One thorned vine snapped at Audree’s wrist.

  He swung his sword and knocked it aside, the impact sending a shiver through the plant. It did not retreat. It recoiled, then came again, sharper and faster, thorns aimed for flesh.

  Audree cursed and stepped back, reaching for a potion vial with his free hand.

  Before he could throw it, the forest surged again.

  More brambles rose, forming a partial cage.

  Audree felt his breathing tighten. His old instinct screamed at him to grab more power, to pull more mana, to force the woods into obedience.

  He swallowed that instinct down.

  He breathed instead.

  Slow in. Slow out.

  He felt the marks under his wraps dim slightly as he steadied himself.

  Lief stepped forward, voice sharp. “Stop!”

  The single word was not a spell. It was a command, backed by Verdancy, backed by recognition.

  The vines around Lief softened again. The brambles lowered a fraction as if listening.

  Lief’s eyes widened. “They… know me.”

  Audree grit his teeth, dodging another lash. “That’s great. Tell them to stop trying to kill me.”

  Lief didn’t answer immediately. He looked like he was listening to something only he could hear.

  Then his expression tightened with confusion.

  “This is wrong,” Lief whispered.

  “What is,” Audree snapped, knocking aside another thorned whip.

  Lief raised a hand, palm out toward the brambles. His voice went calmer, layered with focus. “I’m not your enemy.”

  The plants shivered. The thorns stayed sharp, but the movement slowed.

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  Lief’s brow furrowed deeper. “Why is there so much… emotion?”

  Audree paused just long enough to stare at him. “Emotion?”

  Lief swallowed. “Plants have feelings, in a way. Simple ones. Warmth when there’s sunlight. A kind of steadiness when water is right. It’s never complicated.”

  A vine twitched toward Audree again and Lief flinched, then pushed Verdancy harder, forcing calm into the ground.

  “But this,” Lief said, voice strained, “this is a jumble. Panic. Anger. Confusion. Like… like a crowd of voices all yelling at once.”

  Audree’s stomach turned. “So it’s not just reacting. It’s scared.”

  Lief nodded once. “And it’s being made scared.”

  The brambles shifted again, but not toward Lief. They moved around him like they were protecting him while still trying to keep Audree out.

  Audree clenched his jaw, then did the only thing he could do.

  He stepped closer to Lief instead of fighting the vines head on.

  The brambles snapped toward him, then hesitated, slowed by Lief’s presence.

  Lief took a breath. “Stay close. Don’t swing unless you have to.”

  Audree made a face, but did it.

  Together, they moved like a single unit. Lief pushed calm outward, not forcing obedience but offering it. Audree kept his sword low, defensive, only striking when a vine crossed the line.

  The thorns lowered.

  The brambles loosened.

  The forest’s defensive flare faded into stillness.

  Then the plants withdrew, sliding back into the undergrowth as if nothing had happened.

  Audree stood there breathing hard, sweat cold on his neck.

  Audree could feel the woods settle slightly with Lief’s continued calm. The screaming was still there, distant now, like a headache pushed to the edge of awareness.

  Audree crouched and checked his sleeves for cuts. He had a few small scratches where thorns had grazed him. Nothing serious.

  They moved again, slower this time.

  The woods were not trying to trap them by looping paths anymore. It was guiding them, but with less force than before. Like it had decided they were not prey. Or like it had decided they were useful.

  That thought bothered Audree.

  A few minutes later, Audree’s eyes caught something under a tangle of roots.

  He knelt.

  There, embedded in corrupted wood, were the first real signs of what he needed.

  A cluster of mushrooms with pale undersides, the kind that only sprouted deep in wooded areas and only when mana had pooled long enough to feed them. Their caps were faintly luminous, as if they held moonlight inside.

  Audree carefully harvested them, placing them in a padded pocket of his bag.

  Then he spotted a beetle crawling out of a hollow root. It was small, black-green, with a faint metallic sheen. It only emerged during this season, according to Haldo’s notes.

  Audree grinned despite himself and coaxed it into a jar.

  Two more components.

  His amulet list was nearly complete now.

  His mission, technically, was complete.

  But he did not feel finished.

  They kept walking and Audree kept finding things.

  Every few steps he flicked his eyes on, using Alchemy’s clarity like a tool. The woods were packed with mana-empowered resources he could never find in Embershade. Herbs that looked ordinary until you saw the mana lines running through them. Sap that carried faint enchantment. Stones that hummed with stored warmth. Materials that would have taken him years to acquire elsewhere.

  “This place is amazing,” Audree muttered, half to himself. “Minus the killer plants.”

  Lief sighed like he had been waiting for that. “They’re not evil, Audree.”

  Audree rubbed his forehead. “Fine. Killer plants.”

  Lief’s mouth twitched, almost amused.

  Audree looked back toward the direction of the ruins, mind already racing. “I have to go back to those formations and study them. The work on it was insane.”

  His excitement sharpened into something deeper.

  Greed stirred, eager, reaching toward the idea of understanding.

  Audree felt it flare, just a little.

  He stopped.

  He breathed.

  In. Out.

  The marks under his wrap dimmed again as he forced the hunger into a controlled shape.

  Lief watched him with quiet approval. The woods still called to Lief, but Lief’s calm held. The dampener potion was fading, yet he was managing.

  Then Lief froze.

  Audree followed his gaze.

  Between two trees, deeper in the dim green, a human silhouette stood for a single heartbeat. Too still. Too upright. Too clearly shaped to be a trunk or shadow.

  Audree’s pulse jumped. “Did you see that?”

  Lief nodded slowly, eyes wide.

  The silhouette moved.

  Not running. Not stumbling.

  It simply slipped sideways into the trees.

  Then it vanished.