Morning came quietly, slipping through the trees in thin beams of silver light. The embers of last night’s fire still smoldered, curling faint wisps of smoke into the dawn air. No one spoke at first. The weight of last night’s argument still hung over us.

  I shifted under my blanket, the ache in my limbs a dull reminder of the power I had unleashed. My head was clearer now, but exhaustion still clung to me like a second skin. Across the fire, Gabrielle sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, staring at nothing.

  Zeke crouched beside me, wordlessly offering a waterskin. I took it, the cool liquid soothing the dryness in my throat.

  “How do you feel?” he asked quietly.

  I considered lying—telling him I was fine, that I wasn’t still reeling from whatever I had done back at the river. But the concern in his eyes made me hesitate.

  “Weak,” I admitted. “Like something’s been . . . drained out of me.”

  Zeke exhaled through his nose, glancing toward Kaldi, who was rolling up his sleeping mat. “You nearly froze a whole river, Star. I’d be surprised if you didn’t feel drained.”

  I didn’t respond.

  Kaldi clapped his paws together, shaking off stray twigs. “We need to move early today. The road ahead isn’t difficult, but we shouldn’t waste daylight.”

  No one argued.

  We packed up camp in near silence. The tension between us lingered, unspoken but tangible. Hyacinth gave Gabrielle a small smile as she passed, but Gabrielle barely acknowledged it. Viktor and Pierre avoided looking at each other. Dero, normally the most talkative, simply handed out portions of dried meat without a word.

  As we started walking, the morning air was cool against my skin. But beneath it, something else was stirring—something subtle, yet deeply unsettling.

  I didn’t realize what it was until we had been walking for nearly an hour.

  The world was too quiet.

  At first, it was small things.

  There were fewer birds in the trees. The rustling of unseen creatures that had accompanied us every night before was gone. Even the wind, which I could always feel through my fingers, had stilled.

  No one spoke of it at first, but I could see the unease settling over the others.

  “Does something feel . . . off to anyone else?” Sakura finally asked.

  No one answered, but I knew they felt it too.

  The trees around us seemed darker than before, their towering forms casting long, unmoving shadows. The further we walked, the more distant everything felt. Even the sky, vast and endless above us, seemed muted.

  Dero, who usually filled the silence with stories, had yet to say a single word that morning.

  Something was changing.

  It wasn’t until Hyacinth tried to summon something that we understood just how much.

  She had done it absentmindedly, cupping her hands as she always did when she wanted to conjure something small—an umbrella, just for laughs, she said. A tiny flicker of energy glowed between her fingers—then vanished instantly.

  She frowned and tried again. Nothing.

  “What the hell?” she muttered, shaking her hands as if trying to wake them up.

  Amethyst furrowed her brows and lifted her hand, attempting a basic healing spell. A faint glow shimmered on her palm for barely a second before fading.

  Andrew inhaled sharply, raising his hand toward a boulder by the road. I wasn’t sure what he wanted to happen, but the boulder did nothing.

  His expression darkened. Still, nothing.

  Viktor flexed his fingers, rolling his shoulders. “Maybe it’s just spells that don’t work—” He clenched his fists, ready to test his strength against a fallen log ahead. But as he stepped forward, there was a flicker of hesitation in his eyes.

  When he brought his fist down, the log barely cracked.

  A muscle in his jaw twitched. “That’s . . . not right.”

  Dero finally spoke, his voice quieter than usual. “Magic is fading here.”

  Kaldi nodded solemnly. “The closer we get, the weaker it becomes.”

  Gabrielle clenched her jaw. “How much worse is it going to get?”

  Kaldi met her gaze, and for the first time since we had met him, there was no trace of amusement in his expression.

  “Much worse.”

  A silence stretched between us. Then Cassandra, who had been walking near the back, sighed and adjusted the strap of her bag.

  “We should’ve seen this coming,” she murmured.

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  Pierre frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Cassandra reached into her bag, pulling out a worn scroll. “I read about this last night. The Woods of Silence. The name isn’t just poetic—it’s literal.”

  She unrolled the parchment, scanning the old script. “The Woods aren’t just a place where magic is weak. It’s where magic ceases to exist. No spells, no enhanced abilities, nothing. The deeper we go, the less we’ll be able to rely on it.”

  Amethyst crossed her arms. “So we’re just supposed to… function without magic?”

  “Yes,” Cassandra replied. “And it’s not just that. This says that the Woods reject magic entirely. If we try to force it, it might turn against us.”

  A chill ran down my spine.

  Zeke’s eyes narrowed. “Turn against us how?”

  Cassandra hesitated, glancing at the scroll again. “The records don’t say. Just that any who tried to bring magic into the Woods either lost control of it… or never came out.”

  Hyacinth exhaled sharply. “Well, that’s comforting.”

  Viktor ran a hand through his hair. “So what’s stopping us from going around it?”

  Cassandra pointed to a rough sketch on the scroll. “Because it spans hundreds of kilometers in every direction. Besides, our destination is in the heart of the Woods itself.”

  A heavy silence settled over the group.

  “Then we go forward,” Kaldi said at last.

  By the time we made camp on the third night, the world was almost silent.

  The fire struggled to stay lit, flickering weakly as if the air itself was resisting it. The wind had vanished completely. Even our own footsteps had begun to sound muted.

  That night, we barely spoke.

  Gabrielle sat staring at her hands, as if willing the water to respond to her again. Hyacinth poked at the fire, frustration evident in the way she kept tapping the embers. Zeke sat beside me, arms crossed, his eyes fixed on the darkness beyond the camp.

  Cassandra, who had been quiet most of the journey, suddenly said, “I read something about this place.”

  We all turned to her.

  She had a scroll in her lap, though I wasn’t sure how useful it was anymore, given the failing magic. Still, she unfolded it carefully, scanning the old text.

  “The Woods of Silence,” she read aloud. “An anomaly in the heart of Mysteria, where magic ceases to exist. Not even the gods have dominion here.”

  That sent a shiver through all of us.

  “What do you mean ‘not even the gods’?” Pierre asked, voice lower than usual.

  Cassandra’s fingers hovered over the text. “No one knows why it exists, but according to this, even divine magic doesn’t work inside. It’s a void. A place where the rules of the world unravel.”

  Andrew exhaled sharply. “Sounds . . . welcoming.”

  “It also says,” Cassandra continued, “that people who enter the Woods hear things. Voices. Whispers. Sometimes their own thoughts become unbearable.”

  “So much for being the Woods of Silence,” I said grimly, rather sarcastically.

  A heavy silence fell over us after that.

  “Terrific,” Gabrielle broke the silence. “Not only are we walking into a magic-less wasteland, we might go crazy too.”

  Dero let out a quiet sigh. “Andora’s camp is the only exception. Within its borders, magic can exist, but beyond that . . . ” He shook his head. “You will feel its absence more than you expect.”

  No one had anything to say to that.

  And so, we waited.

  Waited as the fire dimmed. Waited as the night pressed in. Waited for the last remnants of magic to slip away.

  ——

  Dero had gone out at dawn to forage, returning with a bundle of fruits and leafy greens. With our magical satchels losing their effectiveness, he said it was best to rely on whatever we could find.

  Not everyone was thrilled.

  Gabrielle poked at a strange purple fruit with a wary expression. “Are we sure these aren’t poisonous?”

  “If I wanted to poison you, Gabrielle,” Dero said, sighing, “I wouldn’t do it with breakfast.”

  She still hesitated before taking a cautious bite. Her nose wrinkled immediately. “Tastes like overripe melon and . . . onions.”

  Pierre dropped his half-chewed fruit onto a leaf. “I’d rather starve.”

  “We might have to get used to it,” Hyacinth muttered, chewing with far less enthusiasm than usual. “I swear, when we get to Andora’s camp, I’m demanding something fried. Or at least salted.”

  “Does she even have food?” Viktor asked, rubbing his temples. “Please tell me she has food.”

  Kaldi let out a short chuckle. “She does. But whether it’s to your liking . . . well, that’s another matter.”

  Viktor groaned and slumped back. “Great. We’re going to eat more weird forest plants.”

  Sakura popped a berry into her mouth, eyeing the rest of us. “At least it’s something. We don’t know how long it’ll take to get to Andora.”

  I picked at my own portion, stomach twisting. Whether it was the lingering exhaustion or the creeping unease settling over me, I couldn’t bring myself to eat much.

  Breakfast was quick and uneventful, and soon we were on the move again. The unease lingering in our chests only grew as we walked.

  As we walked, the world seemed to change around us.

  The trees grew taller, their branches weaving together like iron cages overhead. The rustling of leaves and distant bird calls faded, swallowed by an unnatural stillness. Even the wind, which had been a constant companion through our journey, had vanished entirely.

  No one spoke.

  The path beneath our feet narrowed, twisting between dark trunks that loomed higher with every step. Shadows stretched impossibly long, creeping toward us like fingers reaching from the depths of something unseen.

  A feeling of wrongness pressed against my skin.

  Magic had been fading since yesterday, but here, on the very edge of the Woods of Silence, I felt its absence like a weight in my chest. It wasn’t just weakened—it was gone.

  A hollow space where something vital should have been.

  And then, we saw it.

  A massive stretch of trees loomed before us, their trunks impossibly tall, their branches twisting together like woven iron. Shadows pooled between them, swallowing what little light reached this place.

  No sound. No movement. No magic.

  The very air was thick with something indescribable.

  I swallowed hard, my breath coming slower, as if the air itself had thickened. A hollow weightlessness coiled in my chest—like something vital had been stripped away, leaving only an absence behind.

  I had only been in Mysteria for a few days, yet I had always felt the presence of magic around me, as real and constant as the wind against my skin. It was something I could reach for, something that whispered against my fingers like threads waiting to be woven into shape. But here, at the edge of the Woods of Silence, there was nothing. No current, no pulse, no unseen threads slipping through my grasp. Just stillness.

  For the first time since arriving in this world, I was truly alone in my own skin.

  Kaldi stepped forward, turning to face us.

  His voice was quiet. Reverent.

  “Welcome,” he said, “to the Woods of Silence.”