A wind nymph followed Seren and Trissa as they slunk through the trees. Seren could see it darting behind the massive trunks, a swirl of leaves and sticks one moment, a woman the next. He and Trissa ignored it, their feet silent, and their cloaks pulled up. Trissa had slung her bow over her shoulder, her grip tight around the handle of her sword. She had barely spoken a word since Rioth’s farm. They marched as shadows among the trees, their green cloaks pulled around them.

Seren walked alongside Trissa, spear in his right hand. The nymph reappeared beside him, floating alongside him and reaching for his hood. He waved her off with the spear, and she flitted away. “Damned thing.” It was midday, and the sun made rippling shapes on the forest floor. Squirrels chittered in the trees. A few deer watched as the two Rangers made their way. Everything was picturesque, hardly what could be expected when a rot walker raved through the safewood. Seren expected things to be glummer, with the threat of a horrible death looming and all.

He nudged Trissa with his elbow as they walked. “You okay?” Her face was hidden in her hood, only a few strands of red hair wisping out. She didn’t respond and kept walking, carefully placing her feet to avoid snapping twigs or rustling the underbrush. “You’ve barely said a word all day,” Seren continued. “I’m beginning to think you’re plotting to kill me.”

Trissa sighed, stopping in front of a small creek that trickled along in front of the Rangers. “Seren, I would greatly appreciate it if you would just stop.” As Seren began to open his mouth to continue, she turned to him. Her blue eyes were sharp enough to cut stone. “Just stop,” she said, holding a hand to silence him. He obliged. “It’s not your job to fix anything or console me or anything else you’re thinking about. I saw something incredibly upsetting in the barn, and that’s the end of it. So please, stop trying to fix everything.” She stared at him, her red bangs falling at either side of her face.

Seren blinked and nodded slowly, “Yes, ma’am.”

“And don’t call me ma’am, or I’ll beat you with that spear.”

Seren grinned, “See? I knew you were trying to kill me.”

Trissa snorted and turned, her boots splashing in the creek as she continued along the path. “If I wanted to kill you, you’d be in a ditch somewhere in the deepwood by now.”

Seren walked quickly to catch up with her. “So, you admit you like me after all these years?”

“Over the years, I’ve grown to tolerate you.”

“Don’t fool yourself; your mind is preoccupied with how much of a handsome, skillful Ranger I am,” Seren said as he climbed over a rotten log that had fallen over the trail.

“You realize you are picking the worst possible time to flirt with me?” Trissa called over her shoulder.

Seren looked at the canopy above them, looking for the sun. If they hurried, they could make it to the circle stones and back to Camp not too long before nightfall. Since leaving the farm, they hadn’t caught any glimpses of the rot walker. The behemoths were surprisingly hard to track. It seemed that they only left a mess when dealing with people. They had passed the Church an hour ago, the eerie building still standing even though half of it was rotted away.

They continued through the forest, footsteps silent and careful. One of the first things Ranger recruits learned was to be completely quiet. Only after a pair could pass unseen around a patrol of senior Rangers would they be taught how to fight. The green of their cloaks blended with their surroundings as they slunk through the trees. The wind nymph gave up eventually, no doubt bored by the lack of attention, and scattered into the trees to bother some more irritable Rangers.

The sun was beginning to descend into the evening when they neared the circle stones. The trees started to thin, the oaks giving way as they came upon stone obelisks covered in scratched and weathered runes like the ones that ringed the Church. They dotted the spaces between the trees, forming a series of lines that circled the larger stones towards the center. The pillars reached Seren’s chin and a few inches over Trissa’s head. He had pointed this out once. The comment had led to her tripping him into a puddle, which had dissuaded further observations.

The trees retreated behind them as they came upon the stones that marked the beginning of the wight country. The circle stones were massive pillars of ancient stone, ivy creeping up their mass and working its way into the many cracks and holes pocked into the surface of the stone. They formed a ring around an empty patch of grass lusher and greener than the grass after spring rains, let alone the beginnings of autumn. They towered over the two Rangers as they walked between the rows of smaller obelisks surrounding the structure.

The stones marked the boundary between the safewood and wight country. Seren scanned the clearing. A few hundred yards beyond their side of the stones, the trees began again, the thicket denser and more foreboding than the gentle oaks of the safewood. “No wights,” he said quietly. He had seen the circle stones enough that it shouldn’t intimidate him anymore, but the circle demanded respect. The weathered stones whispered of something older and stranger than the Rangers and Falderfell.

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Trissa nodded and sat down, her back against one of the mammoth stones. She pulled out a waterskin and took a long gulp. She pushed back her hood and handed the waterskin to Seren. He accepted it and drank deeply. They hadn’t stopped moving since the farm, and his knees were aching. He sat down next to her. The stone was rough, and bits of ivy and moss prickled against the back of his neck.

“So, how do you think it got past the scouts from the fort?” Seren asked as he passed the waterskin back to Trissa. “They never come this far without getting spotted.”

Trissa shrugged, pulling the strands of hair that had fallen loose back and tying them into a tight and uniform tail. “Mycellians also never come this far south, and we saw a patrol of them the other night.” She rested her head against the stone, staring up at the sky. “I reckon it could have split off from that group.”

Seren sighed. The last day had been a departure from the boredom of the previous few weeks, but now that boredom was replaced with a gnawing feeling of unease. His mind drifted back to his father’s farm, not far west from the fort. He had been repressing the image of the fate of Rioth’s farm happening in his family home with moderate success as they had patrolled the safewood, but now, as he and Trissa sat among ancient stones, the dread of the situation set in.

A rot walker was loose in the southern forest, it had already slaughtered a family, and they had no idea where the damned thing was. “What are we going to do if we find it?” The breeze blew through the stones, howling softly as it ruffled Trissa’s hair.

Trissa closed her eyes as she rested her head against the rock. “Track it. Make sure it doesn’t make for the village.”

“And if it does?”

Trissa was silent momentarily, then sat up, hugging her knees to her chest. Her gaze was hard and stony as she stared at the ground. She wasn’t any older than Seren, but her expression was as weathered as any of the obelisks surrounding her. “My father lives in the village.”

Seren nodded. Trissa rarely talked about her home in Falderfell. The subject constantly changed one way or the other. He was beginning to realize how little he knew about the woman he had trained with for almost two years.

“Have you talked to him lately?”

Trissa shook her head, her face still strained and weary. “We didn’t talk much even before I left. I haven’t seen him since I joined.”

“My parents didn’t like me joining either. My mum said I was being selfish, and my da said I was going to get myself killed like a damnfool.”

Trissa grinned weakly. “My father told me, ‘If you go and get yourself killed, girl, you’ve only got yourself to blame.’”

Seren tore at the grass with his fingers, staining his hands as he pulled bits of green from the soil. “You were talking about me having bad timing. Of all the times you talk to me about this, you choose now?”

Trissa stared at the ground, her head still resting on her knees. “We’ve never been alone this long.” Her hands were playing with something as she spoke. The light reflected off it as she spun it over and over. It was a coin, tarnished from years of weather, the markings undistinguishable. “Always had Fyrn or some other officer around. I’m hardly going to bare my soul to them.”

Seren motioned towards the coin. “What’s that? Find it on the trail?”

Trissa closed her hand around the coin, her face returning to being unreadable. “It’s nothing.”

Seren nudged her playfully, “Back to being stoic again?”

“Shut up.”

He raised his hands defensively. “Can’t blame a man fo- “

“No. Shut up!” Trissa hissed. She was frozen in place, her knuckles white as she clasped her hands around the coin like a priceless piece. “Listen.”

Seren froze. Behind them, the grass rustled, and the earth shook as something massive moved through the stones. The world was frozen, the birds singing falling silent, and the insects too afraid to call out as horror moved unseen within the sacred stones. Trissa touched his hand, the thudding becoming louder. He turned to see her slowly sinking down the stone until she lay flat on the dirt.

Seren did the same, slowly edging down until the blades of grass poked above his head. He pulled his cloak slowly from underneath him, unbuckled it from his neck, and threw it over him and Trissa. The world faded into a faint green hue as the cloak covered the two Rangers.

Seren’s heart pounded in his chest; the pounding from the rot walker’s steps echoed the sound. The thudding was coming from all around, from his chest, ears, the soil. There wasn’t enough air. He couldn’t breathe. His chest rose and fell rapidly as he felt the cloak pressing down on him. Outside was certain death, and inside was suffocation. He would die. He was sure of it.

A faint touch on his face broke Seren from his spiral. He turned. Trissa had turned ever so slightly so that he could see her face. Her forehead almost touched his as they lay underneath the cloak, her hand resting softly on his jaw. Her blue eyes were soft yet alight with determination. She moved her hand from his face and rested it on his rapidly moving chest. She mouthed a word silently, the grass covering half of her face. Breathe.

Seren breathed deeply and shakily through his nose. Trissa nodded and breathed out faintly, nodding for him to follow. Her hand rose and fell, beckoning for his heart to slow. Seren closed his eyes, his forehead touching hers as he breathed in and out. In and out. The thudding was growing softer, and the sounds of rustling grass and snapping underbrush grew fainter as the Rangers lay, masked by the green of the cloak, breathing in sync.

The thudding footsteps had disappeared for what seemed like ages before the birds began back their songs. Trissa slowly pushed her way up, her hand still on Seren’s chest. Seren pushed back the cloak, revealing the stones. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, now feeling incredibly embarrassed. Some Ranger you are.

“Thanks for that,” Seren whispered as he pulled the cloak back around himself.

Trissa shook her head dismissively and pulled a twig out of her hair. “My sister used to have moments like that.”

Seren stood and grabbed his spear, “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

Trissa didn’t respond as she stood, walking into the center of the stones. She crouched down, pointing at the depressions made in the lush grass. “It’s big. Bigger than any rot walker I’ve heard of.”

Seren jogged to her and examined the tracks. The footprints in the grass were practically the size of his head. “Tracking it might be a bit easier then. It must have come from wight country.” He looked towards the line of jagged trees that lay beyond their side of the stones, the gnarled branches a wall of wood and thorns.

“Seren,” Trissa’s voice was soft as she pointed toward the tracks leading into the forest. The tracks made their way west, directly towards the village.