Chapter Sixteen: The Singing Trees

They entered the Forest of the Dead at dusk.

The last light of the sun barely pierced the canopy, filtering down in bloody streaks that bled across twisted roots and fallen leaves. The trees here were unlike those of any forest Ethan had known ashen, barkless, their trunks smooth like bone and curving unnaturally, as if they had once been human and still remembered how to kneel.

The deeper they went, the more the forest breathed. Not with wind,but with something older. Each step stirred the air, and the trees moaned softly, low as a death rattle.

Helena was the first to speak. "They call this place Cantoral Morte in the old tongue. The Singing Death."

"What sings?" Rufik asked, walking beside her in wolf form, eyes wary.

"Not what. Who." Helena didn't look back. "The forest remembers every soul that ever died within it. Their voices echo. It's said if you listen long enough, you'll hear your own death among them."

Ethan said nothing.

He didn't want to listen.

But he heard.

Faint whispers like breath against a mirror,curled at the edges of his mind. At first, he ignored them. But then came a voice he knew.

His father's.

"You are not one of them. You never were."

Ethan froze.

Rufik looked over. "What is it?"

"Nothing," he lied.

But it wasn't nothing. It was the part of him that would always be torn in half,the werewolf born with vampire blood, the mistake, the Half-Born. Not beast enough. Not dead enough. And now, caught between the legacy of both.

He pressed forward.

---

An hour into the march, Helena raised a hand.

They stopped near a clearing where the trees bent into a natural archway. Beneath it stood a circle of stones, each carved with sigils that pulsed faintly in the twilight.

Helena knelt and brushed away the moss. "This is one of the Severance Wards. Parlvana laid them centuries ago to keep the Blade hidden. It means we're close."

Ethan crouched beside her. The air near the stones felt... wrong. Cold without chill, still without peace.

He touched one of the runes.

Visions flashed,blood, chains, a woman screaming in a forgotten tongue. His hand jerked back.

Helena nodded. "They're layered with blood memory."

Ethan rose, glancing toward the dark ahead. Something moved there,just out of sight. Not watching. Waiting.

Then a howl shattered the silence.

Not Rufik's.

This was higher. Shrill. Echoing in ways it shouldn't have. It came from all sides.

The wolves turned in unison, growling.

"Wraithwolves," Helena whispered. "Guardians of the blade."

"Corrupted?" Ethan asked.

"No," she said, standing slowly. "Older. Fed by the forest's dead. They don't bleed. They don't tire."

The first one appeared,emerging from a tree itself, its body peeling from the bark like a nightmare given flesh. White as frost, eyes hollow and flickering with inner fire. Its jaws stretched open with no sound.

Then another.

And another.

Eight.

Ten.

Twelve.

They surrounded the circle, silent but for the sound of cracking limbs and creaking wood.

Helena began to chant.

The glyphs on the stones brightened.

The wolves snarled, forming a defensive ring around her.

Ethan stepped forward. "We hold them."

His breath misted in the growing cold. Claws extended. His muscles tensed.

One wolf leapt.

Ethan moved,not with panic, but with precision. His claws tore through the wraith's midsection,but there was no blood. Just mist and a whisper of screams.

Another came from the side. Rufik intercepted, but the wraith bent unnaturally and locked its jaws around his flank.

Ethan dove, slashing it away,but the bite left black frost on Rufik's fur.

"They don't die!" one of the wolves barked.

"They can," Helena said through clenched teeth. "But only if they're severed at the soul!"

Ethan gritted his teeth. Then I'll find their soul.

He dove back into the fray, not transforming fully, but letting the hybrid within rise. His speed turned blinding, his eyes glowing gold. He ducked and spun, slashing with brutal precision, but every wound he gave was answered with chilling silence. These creatures didn't scream. They didn't even bleed.

They were shadows of wolves.

And Ethan was a shadow of everything.

A half-formed howl grew in his throat, but he held it back. He could not give in. Not here. Not now.

You are not beast enough. Not vampire enough. You are nothing, the forest whispered.

But Elara's face burned in his memory.

And so did the fire.

The flames in the village.

The child's voice.

The forest screamed.

He would not let it end here.

With a roar, he drove both claws into a wraithwolf's skull and yanked downward. Mist exploded from its body, and for a moment,just a moment,he saw a shape inside. A child's ghost. Then it vanished.

They were bound by the dead.

Every wraithwolf had once been a life claimed by this forest.

Helena's chant reached its peak. A beam of pale light burst from the stones and struck the ground beyond the archway.

A path opened.

But the wraiths knew it.

They swarmed.

Ethan stood between them and the light. He didn't care about being Half-Born.

He was a wall.

He was claw and fury and fire and all the blood of both his legacies roaring together.

He held them long enough.

The pack surged through the light.

Helena screamed. "Ethan!"

He turned and ran.

The moment he crossed the threshold, the path vanished.

The forest behind them swallowed itself whole.

Silence.

Breathless, bloodied, Ethan fell to his knees.

But they had made it.

The next trial lay ahead.

The Blade of Severance had not yet revealed itself,but it was near.

And something else waited in the silence.

Not another creature.

Not another harbinger.

But a voice.

A woman's.

Calling his name

.

Soft.

Ancient.