Chapter 43 – Voices in the Forest
The mist had swallowed the world behind them within three steps.
Seryn cast a short glance over his shoulder; the barrier line was gone, reduced to a smudged wall of gray. Even if he wanted to turn back, memory was now the only road.
The ground still held the night's cold. Damp soil clung to the soles of their boots, and a faint scent of rot rose from between the leaves. There was no stone's solidity here; everything was soft, yielding, eager to erase footprints.
"Rien, up front," Seryn said. "Kai, right flank. Lyra with me."
Rien dipped his head and slipped ahead, bow lifted at a loose angle. His steps barely made a sound over dry twigs. Kai moved to the right, his motions looser but still controlled, lifting one branch, pushing aside another.
"First time you've put me on the right flank," he whispered. "I feel honored."
"If you do something reckless there, you'll be the first we lose," Seryn answered, equally soft.
Kai's face fell. "Honor revoked."
Lyra walked beside Seryn, small notebook already in hand. On the edge of the page she drew tiny symbols for each notable tree shape and cluster of stones they passed. "If one of us falls…" she said quietly.
"Your map stays," Seryn finished. "I know. But today, we try not to drop anyone."
The gray current in his chest moved like a deep, steady drumbeat.
For a heartbeat, he felt it align with the forest's rhythm: the slight brush of a distant breeze, a faint birdcall, something patient moving under the soil.
Then… something else.
Beneath a vein of earth to their left, he felt a small leak of mana. Different from the standard exam markers—too sharp, too neat, too… familiar.
"Stop," he said quietly.
Rien dropped to a knee at once. Kai took one more step, then hopped back. Lyra froze with her quill pressed to the page.
Seryn bent and scanned the ground. Half-buried among the leaves lay a stone, its surface half-hidden under mud. On it, he saw the worn remains of a Temple sigil, softened by rain and time. Around that, a much newer, much finer ring.
Lyra whispered, "That's… not one of the exam markers."
"No," Seryn said. "That's an old seal."
"And the outer lines?"
He let his fingers hover over the stone, keeping his skin just off the surface while drawing the gray current down. The older Temple magic reacted with a cold, metallic push against him. The outer layer… did something different. It shivered, then slid out of tune like a plucked string.
"Someone added that later," he said. "Not Temple—or at least not purely Temple."
Kai grimaced. "So 'the field has been safely prepared' was… what? A polite half-truth?"
"Let's call it incomplete information," Rien said.
Seryn pulled his hand away. As the gray current withdrew, a brief flash ran through the old seal, like a deeper breath, then it sank back into its dormant state.
"Aren't we reporting this?" Lyra asked.
"Not now," Seryn replied. "We finish the exam first. Then we decide who sees what."
They moved deeper into the forest. Trunks grew thicker, the light filtering down in thinner shafts. The forest's background noise faded slowly; distant snapping twigs, scuttling things, occasional rustlings remained, but they felt further away than they should.
Rien tilted his head. "Left front. Two sets of prints, close ahead. Another team."
Seryn studied the ground. The weight of the steps hadn't yet filled with water; they were fresh. "Lucien's team?"
"Doubt it," Rien said. "Stride's too short for Rurik, too small for Elira. Likely another mixed group."
"Good news or bad?" Kai asked.
"Good news: we're not alone," Lyra said. "Bad news: we're not alone."
Following those tracks would be both advantage and risk. If that team walked into a trap, trailing them was stupidity. If they didn't, whatever circled them from off-trail might find those who followed more exposed.
"We're not shadowing them exactly," Seryn said. "We'll go parallel. Not too far."
"Distance?" Rien asked.
"Twenty paces. No eye contact, keep sound range."
Kai sighed. "Does the word 'easy' even exist in your vocabulary?"
"Hasn't been discovered yet," Seryn said.
---
For a time, nothing happened. The kind of "nothing" Seryn hated most—waiting, collecting, silent emptiness.
As the forest's voice thinned, the one inside his bones grew louder. The gray current moved in slow, deep cycles, sometimes beating with his heart, sometimes half a pulse behind.
Lyra stopped suddenly. "Did you hear that?"
Rien stilled. Kai held his breath.
At first, nothing. Then, far off, a choking cry. As if someone's mouth had been clamped shut, with only the last shred of sound slipping out.
Seryn closed his eyes and angled his focus. The cry hadn't traveled with the wind; it had come from a fixed line: right forward.
Kai's hand slid to his sword. "The exam rules didn't say 'don't interfere with other teams'… right?"
"No," Seryn said. "But they didn't say 'help them' either."
"Do we go?" Rien asked.
He didn't let himself linger on the question. "We do. Not straight in. Two angles. Lyra, with me. Rien, find height and get an overhead view. Kai… don't make noise."
Kai's shoulders sagged. "Again?"
"This time seriously," Seryn said. "I'll tell you when it's time to make noise. That time is not now."
They moved faster. As they cut through the trees, Seryn raised his internal rhythm, calling not on the gray power but on wind and muscle alone. Their footfalls stayed soft, their breaths quick and measured.
The closer they came, the more he could smell it: burnt wood, sharp mana, and the sour note of cooling blood.
Rien's voice drifted down from the branches. "Clearing to your left. One team pinned. Two down, two standing."
When Seryn and Lyra slipped into the edge of the clearing, the scene snapped into focus.
Four students; two—an aura fighter and a mage—were on the ground, half-conscious. The other two were bracing under the crashing shadow of a massive, coiled beast.
Shadow Forktail. They'd seen its tracks before. Now its dark body rose above the mist, long and scaled like a serpent, tail ending in a splitting, blade-like fork, eyes glowing a dull violet.
Kai clenched his teeth. "Didn't Marith say 'the major threats have been cleared'?"
"This isn't major," Rien murmured. "Just medium-sized death."
Lyra's hands lifted. A thin, greenish light formed between her palms. "If I throw a field barrier the moment we step in, I can hold it for ten heartbeats. No more."
"Ten's enough," Seryn said.
He pushed the gray current down. Calling on it here would be like lighting a beacon straight up into the Temple's net. Instead, he summoned wind—light, cutting, responsive.
"Rien, keep your eyes on the tail. Lyra, call it when the barrier's ready. Kai—"
"I know, I know," Kai cut in. "You go low, I go behind."
"This time," Seryn said, eyes locked on the Forktail, "if you slip, you only hit the ground. Nothing more."
For the first time, Kai's nervous grin blended with real seriousness. "Deal."
---
Seryn entered the clearing without shouting. It was still an exam; panic only magnified mistakes. Even so, the other group's leader—a girl with sweat-plastered hair and a flickering aura at her wrist—noticed them at once.
"What are you—?" she started, before the Forktail's tail lashed again.
"Lyra!" Seryn called.
"Now!"
Green light snapped into place along the clearing's edge, rising into a thin, semi-transparent dome. The Forktail's tail slammed into it and skidded, like a branch raking glass instead of flesh.
"Ten…" Lyra's voice shook with the strain.
Seryn gathered wind under his feet. One step, two—on the third he slid sideways, cutting past the beast's flank. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rien's bow tilt in the branches.
"Not the head!" Seryn shouted. "Neck joint!"
Rien didn't hesitate. The arrow flew, a near-silent thread slicing the air. It struck the narrow, less-scaled strip where neck met body. The Forktail let out a strangled sound, tail already whipping again.
"Eight!" Lyra counted.
Kai dove beneath the tail, swinging a cutting stroke at one of the main tendon clusters. The forked tip lurched, its arc disrupted.
That was when Seryn saw the stone.
Lying near the edge of the clearing, half-sunk in dirt: one of the exam's marker stones, etched with the Academy sigil, ringed in a bright Temple pattern. And around it… something else. So faint and new that the gray flow in his chest tugged toward it without asking.
"Six!" Lyra gasped.
Seryn shoved the Forktail's head aside with a boot, pulling Kai back with a sharp "Inside!" as they ducked beneath the barrier's reach. The beast crashed against the dome again; cracks spidered outward.
"Five!"
Rien loosed a second arrow. This one punched into the soft tissue just under the creature's chest. The Forktail shuddered, tail falling limp. Its weight sagged, then toppled.
"Four…"
Lyra dropped her hands and collapsed to one knee. "Done…"
"Not yet," Seryn said.
He knelt by the stone. The gray current slid over the surface, and the Temple sigil blurred where they met, like ink disturbed in water. For a heartbeat, the hidden under-layer showed itself: sharper, more angular, more deliberate than the outer pattern.
That's not the exam designer's hand, he thought. Someone else added their own line.
He pulled back. As soon as the gray withdrew, the second pattern slipped under the Temple seal again; the stone looked as it had before.
"You okay?" he asked, turning to the other team.
The girl still standing nodded, breathing hard. "Yeah… I think so. You're… from another group."
"Yes," Seryn said. "The trial's still running. If you head east from here, you'll find a clearer route back. We're going north."
The aura fighter on the ground forced himself up on one elbow. "Without you…"
"Tomorrow we all face the same scores," Seryn said. "Today is not for counting points."
Kai crouched beside the girl and forced a tired smile. "Steady your breathing. If you don't, you'll end up retaking theory with me."
She let out a shaky laugh. "Is that… supposed to be a warning?"
"A serious one," Rien said.
Lyra pushed herself to her feet. "I shouldn't have been able to cast that barrier that fast," she murmured to Seryn. "My mana felt… pushed."
"The trial itself," Seryn said. "The field mesh is still over us. It amplifies your speed—and your mistakes."
She didn't fully buy it, he could tell. But she nodded and didn't argue.
---
Back on their own path, the forest felt… different. The trees now stood in oddly regular lines. Trunks that should have been randomly spaced had shifted into a rhythm—too orderly for wild growth.
"Do you see it?" Rien asked quietly. "The rows."
"Yes," Seryn said. "Nothing this symmetrical grows on its own."
Kai muttered, "Maybe the exam designers just have terrible taste."
"Maybe," Seryn said. "But this isn't taste. It smells like control."
The gray flow had grown restless as they stepped into this zone. The air thrummed with a mana density that didn't match the rest of the forest. It felt like walking under a net you couldn't see.
Lyra checked her notes. "Based on the markers we logged… we're close to where the exam stones should be. Middle ring of the map."
"Which means…" Kai said, "this is where the fun starts."
"No," Seryn replied. "This is where the accounting starts."
He paused and listened. No wind. No birds. No distant snapping twigs or creature sounds. All the small forest noises—footsteps, growls, scraping—had vanished.
He'd heard this kind of silence before in war.
First the sky went quiet. Then the world held its breath.
"This isn't just an exam," he thought. "Someone's writing a scene."
He opened his eyes and looked at the others.
"Careful," he said. "From here on, this won't feel like the questions on paper. We'll be the ones writing the answers."
For the first time, Kai didn't make a joke.
Rien checked his bowstring again.
Lyra closed her notebook and raised her hands into a ready stance.
And the four of them walked deeper into the place where the silence was thickest.
---
💬 Author's Note (EN):
This chapter pushed the field exam into its real territory: not just physical danger, but layered intentions. Seryn is starting to read the forest as overlapping scripts—the official Academy trial, and someone else's hidden pattern sitting on top of it. The gray current briefly revealing the "second layer" on the stone proves that the Temple isn't the only actor shaping this test. Next time, when they reach the core area for the marker stones, we'll see how that artificial order manifests—both in magic and in politics. ⚔️