The forest did not just shake.
It recoiled.
Branches snapped in the distance with sharp cracks that rolled across the trees like thunder under the earth. The scream that followed was not a sound any living throat should make. It was metal tearing. Stone grinding. Light being ripped apart.
Zyren and Selene ran.
Roots clawed at their boots. Branches whipped against their faces. The trail of black silver light was gone, replaced by raw instinct and the need to move before the thing behind them arrived.
Selene breathed hard, but her steps never lost rhythm. She stayed close, almost shoulder to shoulder, her bow gripped in one hand, the other brushing trunks aside.
She glanced at Zyren between breaths.
"You feel it catching up"
"Yes."
"It is fast."
"Yes."
The scream came again.
Closer.
The trees ahead bent as if pushed by invisible hands. Leaves flew backward, dragged by wind that did not belong to this forest.
Selene sucked in a sharp breath.
"It is warping the air."
Zyren veered left, cutting between two thick trunks. Selene followed without question. A moment later something tore through the space they had just occupied.
The bark of a nearby tree exploded outward. A deep groove carved itself along the trunk, long and clean, as if an invisible blade had passed through it.
Selene flinched.
"That would have taken us in half."
Zyren did not answer.
His shoulder ached from the hunter's strike. His lungs burned with the cold air. The crown inside him pulsed in rough rhythm. Not calmly now. Like a storm pressing against its cage.
Another scream.
Right behind them.
The shadows around them tightened. The forest grew darker even though no night had fallen. Zyren felt the air ripple at his back.
He grabbed Selene's wrist and pulled her down.
"Down."
They dropped behind a fallen trunk just as something massive tore over them. Wind punched the ground. Dirt flew. The trunk shook violently.
Selene pressed against the wood, heart pounding.
"What was that"
Zyren rose just enough to look over the trunk.
The herald hovered in the clearing ahead.
It did not touch the ground.
It did not need to.
It was tall enough to brush the lower branches. Its body was a blend of divine armor and living smoke. Plates of pale gold floated over a core of darkness that twisted like a storm trapped in human shape. Chains of light wrapped around its torso and limbs, but none of them held. They hung loose, drifting in the air.
Its head carried a mask.
Not smooth like the hunter's.
Cracked.
Carved with a vertical slit of burning white.
The eyes behind that slit were pure light.
Zyren's grip on his sword tightened.
Selene slowly rose beside him, eyes wide.
"That is not a hunter," she whispered.
"No."
The herald turned its head slowly, scanning the trees. The air around it warped with every motion. Bark peeled. Leaves curled. Roots pulled back as if trying to escape its presence.
Then it spoke.
Not into the air.
Into the world.
"The bearer ran," it said.
Its voice was layered. Several tones at once. Male. Female. Old. Young. All speaking the same words.
"Good. Fear keeps mortals moving."
Selene's throat tightened.
"It is talking like a judge."
Zyren felt the cold sink deeper into his chest.
He stepped out from behind the trunk.
Selene grabbed for him but missed.
"Zyren, no."
He walked into the clearing and faced the herald.
The herald turned fully toward him.
The white slit of its mask widened slightly.
"You stopped running."
Zyren held his sword low.
"I am tired of being chased."
Selene emerged behind him, bow raised, every muscle tense.
The herald ignored her completely.
"Zyren Hale," it said.
Hearing his full name in that voice felt like cold fingers pressing against his heart.
"You carry the broken crown. The Court calls that a violation."
Zyren kept his voice steady.
"They sent a hunter. It failed."
The herald inclined its head.
"I saw its end. It served its purpose. It confirmed that you are real."
Selene's eyes narrowed.
"So you are plan two."
The herald finally looked at her.
Its gaze slid across her like a blade. Selene stiffened, as if something cold had run under her skin.
"You are a side note," it said softly. "A mortal breath attached to a greater anomaly."
Selene bared her teeth.
"Try touching that breath."
The herald looked back at Zyren.
"You walked into a godless gate. You awakened a remnant of silence. You listened to a fallen sovereign. Every step you take is a fracture."
Zyren raised his sword slightly.
"If the Court wants to stop me, send all of them. Not just another servant."
The herald gave a sound that could have been amusement.
"They sit on thrones. I scout the cracks. We all play our roles."
The white slit brightened.
"Now I play mine."
The air changed.
The forest stopped breathing.
Zyren felt the pressure slam into him. It was not physical. Not at first. It pushed against his chest, his throat, his mind. For a moment his vision blurred.
He heard whispers.
Millions of voices layered into one.
Unworthy.
Empty.
Erase.
Selene staggered.
"Zyren. My head. It hurts."
She fell to one knee, gripping the ground.
The herald drifted closer.
"This is divine presence. Mortal minds are not built for it. If I wished, I could crush you both with the weight of my gaze."
Zyren forced a breath in.
He reached inward.
Not for courage.
Not for logic.
For silence.
The crown answered.
Cold rose.
Sharp.
Focused.
The pressure of the herald's presence met something within Zyren and ground to a stop. The whispers shattered like fragile glass. The pain in his skull dulled.
Selene gasped as the grip around her thoughts loosened.
She looked up at Zyren with wide astonished eyes.
"What did you do"
Zyren did not look away from the herald.
"I told it no."
A faint ring of black silver light appeared at his feet. It rose in a thin veil around him, then broke outward in a slow wave.
It swept across the clearing.
When it touched the herald, the white slit in its mask flickered.
The herald stilled.
"The silence responds," it said. "The crown shields you. Interesting."
Zyren took a step forward.
"Then try something else."
The herald's chains rattled in the air.
The divine armor shifted slightly.
"Very well."
It raised one hand.
Light gathered in its palm.
Not soft light.
Weapon light.
Silver lances formed, thin as spears, spinning slowly around its fingers.
The herald flicked its wrist.
The spears fired.
They moved faster than normal eyes should track.
But this forest was not normal.
And Zyren was no longer only human.
His aura surged.
The world slowed.
Not fully.
Just enough.
He saw the path of each lance.
He felt the impact before it arrived.
He moved.
His sword flashed in tight arcs, each one intercepting a spear. When blade met light, the spears shattered into fragments that hissed against the ground like dying stars.
Selene rolled to the side and took cover behind a tree, then popped out with an arrow nocked.
She aimed for the chains.
The arrow flew.
Green light trailed behind it.
It struck a chain of light and forced it downward, anchoring it to the ground.
The herald turned its head slightly.
"Persistent," it murmured.
It raised its other hand.
The anchored chain whipped against the arrow, snapping it, then coiled upward again.
Selene cursed under her breath.
"Zyren. My arrows barely slow it."
Zyren felt sweat on his back. His shoulder sting had deepened from the effort of blocking. The herald had not moved from its place. It was fighting with only a fraction of its focus.
He understood something in that moment.
This thing was not here to kill him at any cost.
It was here to measure him.
He did not like being measured.
The herald gathered light again, this time shaping it into a sweeping arc that stretched across the entire clearing.
"Test two," it said.
The arc descended.
Zyren could not block all of it.
Selene could not dodge all of it.
He chose.
Zyren ran toward the herald.
"Stay back," he shouted.
Selene ignored that completely.
She ran after him.
The arc hit.
Zyren pushed his aura outward.
The black silver veil flared.
Light struck it.
For a moment the world went white.
Pain seared along his arms and chest.
It felt like his bones were ringing.
Selene was thrown back into a tree. Her body hit the trunk with a sick crack. She slid to the ground, breath knocked out, vision shaking.
"Zyren…"
He stumbled but stayed on his feet.
Smoke drifted from his sleeves.
He looked at the herald with eyes that now carried a faint silver ring around the pupils.
The herald tilted its head.
"Impressive. The silence can deflect Court light when you force it. But you bleed."
Zyren looked at his hands.
Blood trickled from his knuckles.
From his nose.
From a cut along his cheek.
He wiped it away slowly.
"I am still standing."
Selene forced herself up, one hand pressed to her ribs.
Her voice was raw.
"You are not fighting him alone."
She lifted her bow with shaking fingers.
"If it kills you, it kills me trying."
The herald watched her.
"Mortal attachments," it said. "Always a weakness."
Zyren stepped closer.
"Or leverage you do not control."
The herald's eyes narrowed.
"Oh?"
Zyren smiled.
It did not reach his eyes.
"You think I do not know what you are doing. You want to see how I fight. How fast I adapt. How hard I cling to people near me. Every reaction goes back to the Court."
The herald did not deny it.
"That is correct."
Zyren's aura pulsed.
"Then watch closely."
He moved.
He did not wait for the herald to attack again.
He sprinted into the storm of chains and light.
The herald brought its hand up.
Lances fired.
Chains whipped.
Light flared.
Zyren stepped through it.
His aura shifted around him, not as a perfect shield, but as guided silence. Each time a spear neared his body, silence thickened and weakened it. Each time a chain swung, the aura bent its path slightly.
He still took hits.
Light grazed his side.
A chain cut his arm.
His body screamed.
He did not stop.
He closed the distance and swung his sword at the herald's chest.
The blade struck divine armor.
For a moment nothing happened.
Then the black silver edge bit.
Not through metal.
Through authority.
A crack formed along the armor plate.
The herald's head snapped down to look at it.
"Interesting."
Selene did not waste the opening.
She fired again and again, aiming not at the body, but at the crack Zyren had made.
Each arrow struck the same line.
The crack widened.
Light bled out, the same color as the slit in the herald's mask.
The herald's voice deepened.
"So the silence can injure a herald."
Zyren exhaled, chest burning.
"Seems that way."
The herald regarded him for a long moment.
Then the pressure in the clearing shifted.
It weakened.
The chains lowered.
The air grew less sharp.
Selene stared in confusion.
"Is it… stopping"
The herald stepped back.
"You are not ready," it said.
Zyren's eyes hardened.
"Try me."
The herald shook its head slowly.
"If I press further, you die. If you die now, the Court loses the chance to study your growth. You are more useful alive."
Selene's voice carried venom.
"You attacked us for data."
"Yes."
Zyren's grip tightened.
"So what now"
The herald pointed at him.
"Now you walk. You grow. You break what you choose to break. And we watch."
Zyren frowned.
"You are letting me go."
"Not mercy," the herald said. "Investment."
The crack in its armor sealed slowly. The light withdrew. The chains steadied.
The herald's eyes burned brighter.
"When you are stronger, when the silence inside you roars instead of whispering, the Court will send more than me. Enjoy the time you have before that."
Selene took a step forward.
"What if we come for you first"
The herald tilted its head.
"Then this game becomes interesting."
Its body dissolved.
Light pulled inward until only a single point remained.
That point flickered once.
Then vanished.
The forest exhaled.
Branches relaxed.
Sound returned in slow waves.
Selene dropped to one knee, clutching her ribs.
Zyren sagged against a tree, breathing hard.
Blood stained his clothes in several places. His arms trembled from strain. The aura around him faded into nothing.
Selene crawled toward him and caught his wrist.
"Zyren. Talk to me."
He looked at her.
"I am alive."
She glared at him weakly.
"That is not enough detail."
He let a small breath of tired amusement escape.
"Hurt everywhere. Still thinking clearly. Nothing broken that will not heal."
She searched his eyes.
"You sure"
"Yes."
She leaned her forehead against his shoulder for a moment, eyes closed.
"Good. Because if you died, I would have to kill you."
He huffed once.
"That makes no sense."
"Nothing does anymore," she whispered.
They stayed like that for a few breaths.
Two wounded people in a forest that had just watched a divine execution trial.
Then Zyren straightened.
"The Court is watching. The herald will report everything."
Selene looked up at him.
"Then what do we do now"
He looked toward the deeper forest, where the shrine's memory still lingered in his mind.
"Now," he said quietly, "we give them something worth fearing."
Far above, in the Court of divine light, the herald knelt before the assembled thrones.
"The bearer lives," it said. "The crown responds. The silence cuts."
The gods listened.
And for the second time that day, the sky realm felt something it had forgotten long ago.
Doubt.