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“I didn’t want this!” Rollo barked. “You could’ve come back. We could’ve fixed it?—”

“I don’t want fixing,” Garrick snarled. “I wantpower. I want the town to bow to something stronger than tradition and fear.”

“You mean you,” Rollo spat. “You want them to bow toyou.”

Garrick lunged.

They crashed into the sacred stones, shattering old wards that once protected their clan rites. Magic screamed through the air as they rolled, clawing, punching, snarling. They were no longer just men—they were beasts made of fire and memory.

Then the wind stopped. The trees leaned in.And the forest spoke.

Two towering shapes emerged from the surrounding grove—slow-moving, elemental, and impossible to ignore. They rose from the soil like old gods returning to the surface, formed of ancient bark spiraled with lichen, glowing softly from within with threads of moonlight. Their antlered crowns brushed the canopy, and their eyes, hollow as tree knots, pulsed with forest fire and judgment.

Their presence made the air still.

Birdsong stopped. The ground ceased breathing.

Their voices didn’t come in words, not exactly, but through sensation—rippling up from the forest floor, buzzing deep in Rollo’s bones like a dirge.

Enough.

The command vibrated through his chest, a living decree that even Garrick stilled beneath.

Suddenly, the earth split in jagged lines beneath Garrick’s feet. Roots shot up like spears, thick and fast, wrapping around his wrists and ankles with a sound like thunder cracking through stone. The corrupted energy around him shrieked in protest, the dark veins of his magic convulsing under the spirit’s purifying force.

“You can’t have him,” came the guardians’ next decree, and this time the words were almost audible—like wind channeled through hollow trunks, ancient and absolute.

“You’ve taken enough,” Rollo growled, rising to one knee, blood dripping from split knuckles and raw palms.

The spirits’ light cast shifting shadows across his face, making him look half-wild, half-divine.

But Garrick didn’t resist.

He only smiled.

A slow, sick curve of his mouth that spread like rot.

“I was never afteryou,” he said, voice smooth and curling with malice. His eyes gleamed, locked on Rollo’s like a predator who’d already tasted blood. “I was after what you love.”

He leaned his head back, as if inhaling the air left in the clearing.

“And I almost have it.”

Rollo surged to his feet, fury riding his spine like lightning. “No,” he snarled, voice like gravel breaking. “You’ll never touch her.”

The roots yanked Garrick backward, dragging him toward the grove’s edge, where shadow tangled with light like wardrums waiting to strike. The forest guardians moved in unison, their limbs creaking like old wood, their command ironclad.

But Garrick—damn him—twisted just once more. Even bound, even fading into the dark, he turned.

His gaze cut through the magic between them.

“The bond is your weakness, Rollo,” he spat, his voice a blade of prophecy. “And when it breaks—so will you.”

Then the shadows swallowed him.

The grove pulsed once, and he was gone.

Silence fell.