I’ve never trusted crossroads.

  They don’t just divide paths — they divide intentions. And this one was older than maps, older than travel. Carved into a glade where light did not reach, and where every direction pulled in a different truth.

  I stood at the center, Serre-du-Vide humming softly across my back. The wind had stopped. The trees had stopped. Even the birds, my ever-loyal watchers, would not cross the boundary.

  There was something buried beneath the soil here. Not bones.

  A choice.

  This was where my conflict sharpened: I was not meant to stay still. But I had not yet chosen a direction. To remember, always — or to finally let go. The world had grown quiet around me, as if the forest itself was holding its breath for my answer.

  The Reaper’s voice found me there.

  "You carry them all. But not all want to be carried."

  The prophecy rang in my mind again — half-remembered, always ending before the last line. I had spent years trying to unravel it. To finish it. To know my purpose.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  But the truth clawed at me now:

  What if I was never meant to finish it?

  What if I was meant to be the pause — the silence before the final word?

  A crow landed near my boot. It pecked once at the earth and flew.

  Below it, something shimmered.

  A feather. Not mine. Older. Laced with silver thread and symbols I hadn’t seen since the Vaults burned.

  Morrinar script.

  I bent down. Touched it. And I heard her voice — not the Reaper, not Helanin. A new voice. Laughing.

  Running.

  Then pain. Then stillness.

  Then:

  "You must decide, Grim Moissonneuse. Are you the one who remembers... or the one who ends the remembering?"

  The feather burned in my hand.

  I let go. It vanished.

  And far in the distance, carried on a breeze that did not belong to this world, I heard footsteps in starlight.

  They were steady.

  Playful.

  Then suddenly — they stopped.

  I turned.

  At the far edge of the glade, just where the trees began again, stood a silhouette. Cloaked in dusklight and motion. Still, but tense — like the instant before a lightning strike. The air smelled faintly of lavender.

  She didn’t speak.

  Neither did I.

  But the forest shivered.

  And Serre-du-Vide hummed not with warning — but with recognition.

  The fox had arrived.