The valley groaned under the weight of thunder.
It wasn't a storm that stirred the earth.
It was marching.
From the northern pass, down the hills choked in mist and memory, they came.
Shields bearing the burning eye and cross.
Banners of white and gold, rippling like wings in the dead wind.
Voices sang in unison, not loud, not triumphant—resolute. Psalms of light. Chants of holy vengeance. A force older than the kingdom's walls and stronger than mortal oaths.
At the head of them all rode Cyril, brother to Methodius.
Clad in gleaming silver chased with sky-blue inlay, he carried no sword—only a long staff crowned with a shard of crystal, so bright it cast shadows beneath the midday sun.
His gaze, calm and searching, swept over the village of Myrnyi as it emerged in ruins.
He did not smile.
He did not mourn.
He merely saw.
What remained of the villagers who refused to leave their homeland, shuffled near the well, led by a pair of frightened women. Smoke still curled from burned thatch. The once-busy square lay cracked and empty.
A priest from the order approached one of the villagers, who was sobbing against the wall of the chapel.
"I saw them," she whispered. "The forest… it grew teeth."
Further down the path, a tall, hunched man waved the soldiers over.
The librarian.
He had long gray hair and wore a dusty robe stained with ash and time.
"You are… Methodius's kin?" he asked, voice trembling.
Cyril stepped down from his white destrier.
"I am Cyril. "
The librarian bowed low, clutching an old book to his chest.
"Please… my son. Kyi. You must find him. He went with your brother into the forest."
The old man's eyes were rimmed with tears.
"He's all I have left. My wife, Solomiya—she… drowned. Years ago. The river took her. The forest never returned her. Kyi is all I have."
Cyril looked down at the man with the serenity of a priest and the weight of a commander.
He placed a hand on the librarian's shoulder.
"If he lives, we will find him. If he walks in darkness, we will bring light. And if he has fallen—we will avenge him."
The old man wept.
Cyril turned and mounted again.
"To the treeline!" he ordered.
The Holy Army advanced.
Knights in armor kissed with sigils of light. Clerics with relics bound in cloth. Saints who had not spoken a mortal word in years. They marched toward the edge of the Drowned Forest.
Not to explore.
Not to parley.
To purify.
The campaign had begun.
And the forest, far ahead, held its breath.