The biting wind hit their faces like daggers and warned them that winter impended, although the season had yet to change for the worse.

It moaned throughout the forest like a wailing ghost and chilled everything in its path. In the darkness of night, everything became frozen and as still as the dead in their shallow graves.

Not even a single soul wandered the forest apart from them – not even the ogres who hunted in the dark and slept during the day.

Only their footsteps echoed through the dark vicinity and woke up the owls from their sweet slumbers, which chanted a song in their sinister way while their yellow, glowing eyes followed the strange pair wherever they went.

Even the wolves trailed them close behind, but none of them dared to disturb them, because even the wild animals recognised the druid, whose reputation was greater than the Council of Deities in Salwodor.

Hain pulled up his shoulders and chafed his arms. His cheeks turned bright red so that they looked like droplets of blood merging with the hills of snow.

His lips trembled and he was unable to speak his mind and ask the druid where they were going.

Gwydion, on the other hand, veered off the trail and disappeared beyond a thick bush, forcing his way in despite the wicked thorns.

A grim and dire feeling took over Hain’s mind as he was left all alone in the murk.

The howling wind whistled louder and louder. Darkness fell over the forest and thick patches of fog rolled in and blanketed everything in shades of black.

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Scared out of his mind, he slid his way through the branches. The thorns dug into his bare skin and caused blood to drop on the wilted leaves.

Then he heard them, the whispers, and came to a standstill.

The bushes, at least that was what he thought, whispered something that chilled him to the bone and rooted him to the spot.

Everything else went silent; the owls no longer hooted so morbidly, and the trees no longer danced to the cadence of the whistling wind.

He held his breath only to breathe faster and faster every second the whispering bushes grew louder, repeating words that did not make any sense.

Yet he knew there was some truth to them for some unknown reason. Why he thought so, he couldn’t tell even if he wanted to, he just knew that was the case.

“You’re not him…”

“You’re not him…”

“You’re not him…”

Who were they talking about? And what did they want from him?

Hain ran for the hills to escape the whispers, but the trees, bushes and thickets snatched his arms from all directions and prevented him from taking a step further. They wished for him to stay put and listen carefully to the strange whispers that repeated their chant unbothered.

Perhaps that was why he noticed that the chants were in a language other than the one spoken in Fayr, yet he understood every single word of it.

Shuddering at this bizarre realisation, his heart skipped a beat and he held his breath – ears perked up and mind a jumbled mess of foreign words only he could understand.

When he tore himself away from the grip of the forest and dashed away from the whispers, which grew into a soaring scream that made the blood rush to his veins so fast that they bulged out from under his skin.

Still, the dense forest did not give up that easily and let him off the hook. Leafless branches snatched him from all directions, trying to slow him down and pull him back into the heart of the forest with a relentless force.

Hain barely avoided their grip when he caught sight of a dark figure in the distance. The druid!

With newfound energy, he ran with all he had and never looked back – not even when the uprooted trees dug their arms into his skin and let the blood in his veins trickle and sink into the wet soil.