The wolf came just after the group put up a camp, its eyes two flickering lanterns in the night.
It emerged from the trees without sound and stopped just beyond their fire. Shchek stirred first. The group grabbed their weapons. Then Lybid recognized it—not just a wolf, but Baba Yaha's wolf, the one she had promised.
A two-meter tall wolf curled up near the campfire and closed his eyes.
In three hours group finally fell asleep.
After some unknown period of time the wolf woke up and began to walk.
And they followed.
For hours they moved through unnatural silence, guided only by the wolf's slow, graceful pace. The forest began to narrow, thicken, press inward.
Then the trees fell away.
They stood at the edge of a steep ravine, vines like veins running down the cliff face. The wolf sat at the edge, then leapt—disappearing behind the stone wall.
The group found the narrow trail and descended.
At the bottom was a cave.
Its mouth was wide and shaped like a gaping jaw. Runes pulsed faintly around the entrance—both life and root, death and sleep magic, mingled with something older.
They stepped inside.
The air was cold. Still.
At the center of the chamber, surrounded by crystalized roots and petrified ferns, lay a coffin—simple, wooden, carved with spirals and moons.
Inside it lay a man.
He looked barely older than thirty.
His hair was white, flowing like snowmelt. His skin was pale but unmarked. And his eyes, when they opened, were deep black mixed with cold-blue veins—the color of midnight rivers. His face was extremely handsome, no better to say beautiful.
He smiled faintly.
"Finally," he said. "You came. I was starting to think she'd forgotten about me."
The group stepped back, startled.
He sat up smoothly, graceful like water.
"I am Khoryv. Founder of Myrnyi. Servant of Rod and Mara."
He sniffed.
"You all reek of my ex."
Lybid cleared her throat.
"Witch said you could help us," Lybid said, cautious.
Khoryv's grin widened.
"Oh, I can. But I'm not sure I want to after she made me wait three hundred years."
He swung his legs out of the coffin. The floor beneath him lit up with faint green veins.
"But I suppose destiny waits for no one. You want to reach the core, don't you?"
Lybid nodded.
He chuckled. "Normally you'd have to bleed yourself through the trials. Sacrifice roots. Burn branches. Offer your past to the trees. But…"
His eyes stopped on the staff in Lybid's hand.
He blinked.
"Well. Well. That changes everything. You are his Blessed."
He stepped closer.
"The Staff of Verdance. Activated. Alive again. Which means the seal recognizes you as one of its own."
He touched the staff and the cave walls pulsed like lungs exhaling.
"You don't need to crawl through the forest anymore," Khoryv said, smiling like a king awakening in his tomb. "You can walk through the heart."
He turned to the back of the cave.
And the stone began to shift.
Roots unwound. Moss peeled. A door formed, pulsing with emerald and blood.
"Come," he said. "Let me show you what waits beneath."