"Okay," Na whispered to herself, clutching the warm ginger root like a talisman. "You can listen. You can pay. Just don't become the price."
Emboldened by her small victory, she moved deeper into the Forest of Whispers, trying to follow the new, strange language of the place. The air thrummed with subtle cues—a cluster of bioluminescent berries that dimmed as she approached (not friendly), a patch of moss that emitted a soothing, minty scent (safe to pass), a stream that sang a high, clear note over certain stones (drinkable).
She needed more than ginger. The challenge demanded a primary protein. The memory of the six-legged opal rabbit stealing from the twin gave her an idea. Maybe she didn't need to hunt an animal. Maybe she could find an ingredient that was the forest's version of protein. A mushroom dense with nourishment, or a nut with the substance of meat.
Pushing through a curtain of weeping vines, she entered a small clearing. In the center was a stump, and on it grew a cluster of mushrooms unlike any she'd seen. They were a soft, luminous silver, their caps perfectly round and dusted with what looked like starlight. They smelled incredible—like roasting chestnuts and browned butter.
There. That was it. It had to be.
Cautiously, she approached, humming her grandmother's tune softly, a peace offering to the forest. The mushrooms seemed to pulse in time with the melody. She reached out a hand.
A blur of white shot from the underbrush.
Na yelped, stumbling back. The thing skidded to a halt between her and the stump. It looked like a rabbit, if a rabbit were drawn by a mischievous, slightly sinister artist. It was pure white, with ears too long and tipped with black. Its eyes were pools of void, and when it grinned, it showed a mouthful of needle sharp, metallic teeth that gleamed in the gloom. It stood on its hind legs, twitching its nose, not at the mushrooms, but directly at her.
"Nice bunny," Na said slowly, taking a step back. "I'm just… looking."
The spirit rabbit let out a chittering laugh that sounded like rattling silverware. It didn't go for the mushrooms. It took a hop toward her, its void like eyes fixed on the foraging basket on her arm.
It wasn't after her food. It was after her tools. Just like the creature that stole the twin's napkin.
She took another step back. The rabbit mirrored her. She sidestepped. It mirrored again, herding her. She realized with a cold jolt that it wasn't just being mischievous; it was driving her, with playful, malevolent precision, toward the far edge of the clearing.
Where the glowing mushrooms grew.
Except, the ones at the clearing's edge were not silver. They were a sickly, pulsating purple, with tendrils that lazily waved in the air. The air above them shimmered with heat. The Glutton's Gill, her grandmother's book had mentioned such a thing once. A fungus that lures with heat, and digests what comes too close.
She was cornered. The razor toothed rabbit behind her, chittering. The predatory mushroom patch ahead, its tendrils now reaching, smelling living warmth.
Panic, cold and sharp, rose in her throat. She had her knife, but the thought of stabbing that uncanny creature made her sick. And the mushrooms… attacking a plant felt even more absurd and hopeless.
"Alright, that's enough," she said, her voice shaking. She brandished the knife, not at the rabbit, but in a general show of defense. "Just back off, okay?"
The spirit rabbit seemed to find this hilarious. It coiled its powerful hind legs, its void eyes glinting. It was going to pounce, not to bite, but to knock her off balance, right into the waiting gill tendrils.
Time slowed. Na braced herself, a scream trapped in her lungs.
The pounce never came.
A shadow, darker and more solid than any in the forest, dropped from the canopy above. It moved faster than sight, a streak of controlled violence between Na and the rabbit. There was no flashy magic, no roar. Just a muffled thump, a pained squeak cut brutally short, and the rustle of leaves.
The shadow resolved into a man, standing with his back to her where the rabbit had been. Jin Long.
He was dressed not in formal robes, but in close fitting, dark clothes that allowed for movement. He didn't look at her. He gazed down at the now still form of the spirit rabbit, his head tilted as if examining an unsatisfactory ingredient. In the dappled moonlight, Na saw his profile—sharp, impossibly handsome, and utterly expressionless.
He lifted his foot and nudged the creature off the path. It vanished into the ferns. Dispatched with an efficiency that was more terrifying than any monster.
Then, slowly, he turned.
Na's breath hitched. His eyes. In the deep shadows of the forest, they were no longer just dark. They held a faint, internal light, a molten gold glow like embers seen through a slit in a furnace door. It was not a human light. It was the gaze of something ancient, predatory, and utterly removed.
He looked her up and down, his gaze as assessing and cold as his voice had been through the mirror. His eyes lingered on the knife trembling in her hand, on her muddy shoes, on her face, pale with shock.
"Tell me, Li Na," he said. His voice was quiet, but it cut through the forest whispers like a blade. It was the voice from the audition. "Is this to be the standard? Your human fragility, a liability requiring… intervention?"
The shock crystallized into a sharp, defensive anger. He had saved her, maybe, but his words were a dismissal of her entire being. He wasn't asking if she was okay. He was questioning her right to be here.
"I didn't ask for your intervention," she shot back, her voice stronger than she felt. She lowered the knife, her pride forcing her to stand straighter. "And my 'fragility' has gotten me further than your… your frozen personality has, I bet. At least my food has a heartbeat. At least it has heart! What does yours have?"
For a fraction of a second, the gold glow in his eyes flared, bright enough to illuminate the sharp planes of his face. A flicker of something passed through them. It was gone so fast she wondered if she imagined it.
"Heart," he repeated the word as if it were a foreign, mildly distasteful concept. "A messy, inefficient organ. It pumps blood. It does not cook." He glanced at the pulsating purple mushrooms, whose tendrils were now slowly retracting, as if sensing a greater predator. "Your three hours are wasting. Do you intend to win this challenge with a single knob of ginger and misplaced sentiment?"
The dismissal stung, but it also acted as a slap, shocking her out of her panic. He was right. She was just standing here. She turned away from him, her back stiff, and looked again at the silver mushrooms on the central stump. They were still glowing, still singing their silent, nutty song.
Ignoring him, she walked toward the stump. She could feel his gaze on her back, heavy and analytical. She knelt, setting her basket down. The spirit rabbit was gone, but the forest was still watching. She could feel it.
She began to hum again. Not the cooking song this time, but a lullaby her grandmother used to sing, one about the moon and a sleepy kitten.
As the soft melody left her lips, the silver mushrooms brightened. Their glow became warmer, more inviting. One of them, the largest at the cluster's center, detached itself from the wood with a soft pop and rolled gently toward her hand.
Na picked it up. It was firm, heavy for its size, and warm. It pulsed in time with her humming. She placed it reverently in her basket next to the ginger.
Only then did she look back at Jin Long.
He was still there, a statue of shadows and implied power. The molten gold in his eyes had dimmed to a faint shimmer. He said nothing. He offered no praise, no further critique. He simply watched, his face an unreadable mask.
Na stood, brushing the dirt from her knees. She met his strange, glowing gaze and held it. "I don't know what you are," she said, her voice quiet but clear in the whispering glade. "And I don't know why you're here, playing judge in the shadows. But I'm not here for you. I'm here for my family. And I'll use whatever I have...my hands, my songs, my heart to win. Even if you think it's messy."
For a long moment, there was only the sound of the forest. Then, Jin Long gave a single, slow blink. When his eyes opened, the gold light was entirely gone, leaving them dark and impossibly deep.
"See that you do," he said, his tone flat. "The Gauntlet has no mercy for the tenderhearted."
Then, he turned and melted into the trees, becoming one with the shadows so completely it was as if he had never been there at all.
Na stood alone in the clearing, the weight of the silvery mushroom in her basket, the memory of those burning gold eyes seared into her mind. The fear was still there, a cold knot in her stomach. But alongside it was a new, defiant fire.
He thought heart was a liability. She would prove it was the only weapon she needed. Clutching her hard won ingredients, she turned and began the journey back to the Pavilion, the forest's whispers now sounding less like threats and more like a curious, waiting audience.