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T he silence was unnatural. The usual hum of insects, distant bird calls, and rustling leaves vanished, replaced by an oppressive stillness. The air feels even heavier here. Vivienne fought for every inhale.

Her boots crunched against barren earth as she stepped forward. A towering, blackened tree loomed in the center of the clearing, its charred branches clawing at the sky like skeletal fingers. It dwarfed the surrounding rainforest. A perimeter of death encircled the tree. Everything beyond its reach was lush and thriving and everything inside a desolate wasteland.

Lewis loosed a breath, awe creeping into his voice. “This tree… it’s ancient. Older than anything I’ve ever studied. It must be thousands of years old. Like the All-Mother herself planted it.”

Vivienne crouched at the edge of the dead zone, running her fingers over the parched soil. A faint shimmer caught her eye. Silvery powder, clinging to the earth like a ghost of destruction.

“Cinderbind?” Commander Thorne murmured, seeing the pinch of powder between Vivienne’s fingers. “Likely from the same group who set the fire at the ruins.”

Cirrus’ voice was tight, still raw from their argument. “Using everburn on a tree? Why?”

Vivienne’s breath snagged in her throat. The realization struck like a blow. “Because it was never just a tree.”

She tore open her satchel, pulling out one of the tracings from the ruins. The image was clear. People running toward the tree, the symbols for refuge and sanctuary etched beside them. A sick feeling coiled in her stomach.

Lewis met her gaze, his eyes filling with understanding. “They thought they’d be safe here.”

Cirrus’ face paled. “You don’t think there’s... more, do you?”

Vivienne blinked hard. She didn’t have to answer. They all knew.

The tree grew more ominous as they drew closer, its roots standing like the ribs of a collapsed beast. One section curved into an archway, leading into a cavernous hollow beneath the trunk.

They stepped inside.

At first, the shapes were only shadows, indistinct piles against the earth. Then Vivienne’s eyes adjusted. Nothing could have prepared her for what they’d found.

Bones.

Small, fragile skeletons, burned and twisted, tangled together in a final, silent horror.

“Gods above,” Owen whispered, the words pained.

Cirrus uttered a curse under his breath.

Lewis stumbled back, his face ashen. “Children?” His voice cracked. “What kind of monsters—” He turned away, pressing his hands to his face.

“No…no…no.” Vivienne’s breath came in short gasps, her hands flying to her mouth and stifling her sobs of shock. She couldn't look away. Tiny skulls of infants and toddlers, their delicate bones not yet fused. Some remains curled in fetal positions, others lay sprawled as if they had fought to escape.

“They sent them here… because they thought they’d be safe,” Lewis choked out.

Owen, ever composed, had tears cutting silent tracks down his face. “This is a mass grave.”

“No,” Cirrus snarled, shaking with fury. “This was a mass murder.” He clenched his fists and strode out of the hollow.

Vivienne barely made it outside before she collapsed to her knees, retching into the dirt. The cold sweat of horror clung to her.

Lewis sat beside her, arms draped over his knees, staring at nothing. Owen emerged a moment later, his face hardening into stone.

Across the clearing, Cirrus’ voice called out, strained and bleak.

“I found something else.”

Vivienne shuddered. No. No more. There can’t be more.

Owen helped her to her feet, his grip steady but gentle. Their eyes met. He didn’t need to speak. The pain in his mirrored her own.

Reluctance weighed them down with every step as they circled the tree to where Cirrus stood.

A lone skeleton leaned against a sprawling root, untouched by fire. Unlike the others, this figure had not been reduced to charred remains. Delicate, timeworn robes still draped across its shoulders in faded threads. A small, open pouch lay beside the bones, bearing small, corroded tools.

Lewis crouched, his voice quiet. “Is this our stone carver?”

Vivienne studied the remains. “It’s likely. The only one who lived through the…” she hesitated, struggling to find a word that could contain the horrors they had witnessed. “…fires.”

She brushed her hands over two etched symbols next to the carver’s shoulder. “This says sorrows. A tree of sorrows.”

Lewis pointed at several pits scattered near the bones. “They planned their departure. Cyanide.”

Vivienne closed her eyes. They had chosen their fate.

Thorne and Cirrus weren’t listening. They stood frozen, their gazes locked onto something on the other side of the root. Vivienne followed their line of sight. Bile rose in her throat.

A carving in the tree’s root.

An owl.

An eight-pointed star.

The emblem of Fendwyr.

A cold weight settled in her chest. “Did Fendwyr do this?” she whispered, barely able to say the words aloud. “Are we responsible for the massacre of these people? Their children? ”

No one answered. The truth as they’d known it was unraveling too fast, shifting from horrifying possibility to undeniable reality.

Lewis’ voice was thick with emotion. “Could the owl and star mean anything else?”

Commander Thorne exhaled sharply. “Not together. Not in this arrangement. There’s no other explanation.”

Vivienne’s hands clenched into fists as outrage burned in her chest. She paced, her breath ragged. Her memories pitted against what she’d seen. No book, no scroll in the entire Library of Metis ever hinted to or referenced this.

“How does something like this disappear from our history?” Cirrus muttered, unable to move his eyes from the carved sigil.

Vivienne spun on her heel. “Because history is written by the self-proclaimed victors. They erase their atrocities, rewrite failures, and build ink and parchment shrines to their heroics.” Her voice dripped with venom. “That’s how.”

Owen shook his head as though the movement would help him process. “Even in the restricted warfare archives, none of this is mentioned. The last recorded military engagement was the defense of the capital during the Siege of Fendwyr.”

Lewis stiffened at the mention of the siege, the tragedy that had taken his parents. “When we met the king, he claimed Osimiri’s island forces attacked Vantner unprovoked?—”

“This,” Cirrus growled, gesturing to the tree and its tomb, “seems pretty damn provoked to me. The senseless murder of these people, these children is a more than justifiable reason to retaliate.”

Every moment clicked into place in Vivienne’s mind, like the pieces of a horrific puzzle. The Great Conflict had been nearly a century ago, too long for the destruction here. Dr. Mercer said the bones at the ruins were twenty to thirty years old. The Siege of Fendwyr happened twenty-six years ago.

Her stomach twisted. “King Berius lied . All of our leadership has been lying.”

The words hung between them like a death sentence.

“Fendwyr did this,” she seethed. “They butchered an entire population and broke the peace treaty with Osimiri…” She gulped down air, fighting fury’s squeeze around her lungs. “And for what?”

Resources? Land? Had they wiped out a civilization to claim what was never theirs?

“Regardless of their intentions, nothing justifies this level of cruelty,” Owen said, his voice hollow. “They didn’t have to burn them alive. They chose to make these people suffer.”

Lewis exhaled, rubbing his hands over his face. “If the curse is real, I’m starting to think we deserve it.”

“The bastard king does,” Cirrus countered. “The rest of the kingdom had no part in this.”

Vivienne lifted a finger, recalling something from their audience with the king. “Chancellor Montaghue said curses must be equal to and connected to the original offense.”

Owen locked his jaw, the tension visible on his neck. “Our kingdom ended their bloodlines. The curse slowly ends ours.”

Lewis scoffed. “Honestly? That Velorien guy let us off easy.”

“Not that easy.” The words had barely left his lips when Cirrus tensed, cutlass drawn. His eyes locked on the tree line as footsteps converged on the clearing.