The rain had not yet fallen, but the forest already smelled of it.

Cedar and wet stone carried on the wind as the valley prepared for a storm it had known before. Clouds stacked low against the eastern ridgeline, heavy and bruised, moving with the slow certainty of something returning to claim what had been left unattended. Beneath them, the sacred drumbeats echoed—low, deliberate pulses that traveled through root and soil rather than air.

Three figures stood atop the ridge overlooking the old shrine.

They had not come together by accident.

Shika Nozomi knelt closest to the earth, bare fingers pressed into the damp soil as if testing its memory. Moss clung to her boots. The sigil etched into her left arm—golden and geometric—glimmered faintly beneath her skin, responding to something deep below the surface. The Earth Spirit had never spoken to her in words. It didn’t need to. It answered weight with weight, patience with endurance.

Shika had always understood that language.

Behind her, Arashi Miyo paced the edge of the ridge, boots crunching against loose gravel she did not bother to step around. The air shifted wherever she moved, strands of hair lifting as static gathered at her shoulders. Pale blue sparks traced her fingertips, appearing and vanishing like restless thoughts. Her sigil pulsed in time with her heartbeat, refusing stillness.

“The elders are going to feel this,” Miyo muttered. “They’ll know we’re here.”

Shika didn’t look back. “They already know.”

Miyo scoffed, though she slowed her pacing. “That’s not reassuring.”

Between them stood Yue Mizuki, unmoving. Mist clung to her silver hair and gathered at her ankles, curling like breath in cold air. Her eyes were closed, lashes damp, attention turned inward. The pale white glow of her sigil shimmered beneath her sleeve—not hot, not aggressive, but steady. Fire, in her hands, was not destruction. It was remembrance. It was what survived after everything else was gone.

She opened her eyes.

“The valley is listening,” Yue said quietly. “Not the elders. Not the council. This place.”

Lightning split the sky above the mountains, a jagged line of white that illuminated the ridge in stark relief. Thunder followed—not immediate, but rolling, layered, as if the land itself were clearing its throat.

Shika rose to her feet and brushed the soil from her palms. The ground beneath her boots felt warmer now, alive in a way it hadn’t been moments before.

“We shouldn’t be here,” Miyo said again, softer this time. “You know what happened last time.”

“No,” Yue replied. “We know what they told us happened.”

That stopped Miyo cold.

The shrine lay below them, half-swallowed by the forest. Stone steps cracked by roots led down to a square altar overgrown with moss and vines. Once, this place had been the heart of the valley. Offerings had burned here. Names had been spoken aloud. Spirits had answered.

Now it waited.

Yue had seen it two nights ago in a dream she hadn’t been able to shake—the veil thinning, the land folding inward, something reaching through with fingers that were not hands. She had woken with the taste of ash in her mouth and her sigil burning white-hot against her skin.

She hadn’t told the elders.

Neither had Shika, when the earth had trembled beneath her sleep. Nor Miyo, when lightning had struck the same tree twice in a single night without leaving a mark.

The sigils had awakened on their own.

They descended the steps together.

With each footfall, the forest reacted. Leaves rustled where there was no wind. The roots beneath the soil shifted, slow and deliberate, as if making space. When Shika stepped onto the altar stone, the moss beneath her palm receded, revealing ancient carvings worn smooth by time.

The air hummed.

Their sigils flared in unison—gold, blue, and white—casting overlapping light across the stone. The altar responded with a low vibration that traveled up their legs and into their bones. Vines pulled themselves free of the cracks. The ground split just enough to breathe.

Wind gathered, circling them, funneling through the clearing in tightening spirals. Mist parted around Yue’s feet, fireflies appearing midair as if suspended between moments. The forest held still.

Then the voice came.

It was not loud.

It did not echo.

It existed everywhere at once.

“Three awakened.”

The words cracked with age, layered and uneven, as if spoken by more than one mouth that no longer remembered how to be human.

Shika’s knees locked. Miyo’s sparks stuttered and dimmed. Yue felt heat coil beneath her skin, restrained only by will.

“One missing,” the voice continued. “The pact is frayed.”

The sigils dimmed, recoiling.

“What does that mean?” Miyo whispered, her bravado gone. “Missing who?”

The forest did not answer.

The altar stone split with a sharp, resonant crack. Lightning struck again—closer now, close enough that the thunder shook leaves loose from the canopy. Somewhere deep beneath them, something shifted.

Shika’s breath caught—not in fear, but recognition.

An old memory surfaced, uninvited.

A lullaby.

Her grandmother’s voice, low and steady, sung during long winter nights when the fire burned low. It had never named names, only spoken of daughters of the valley—four voices bound to the land, four paths intertwined.

She had always assumed it was metaphor.

She turned slowly toward the others.

“What if we’re not the only ones marked?” she said.

Miyo stared at her. “What?”

“The song,” Shika said, the words feeling strange on her tongue. “It wasn’t about three.”

Yue didn’t look surprised.

“She’s forgotten,” Yue said softly. “Or they made her forget.”

The altar shuddered.

From the forest’s edge, something moved.

Not a beast. Not a spirit.

Something that did not belong entirely to either.

Branches bent as it shifted deeper into shadow, unseen but present, attention fixed on the clearing. The sigils flared again—not brighter, but sharper, like a warning.

The pact had not completed.

The storm had not broken.

Shika stepped back first. Then Miyo. Yue lingered a moment longer, eyes fixed on the darkness beyond the trees.

“We’re not meant to finish this,” Yue said. “Not yet.”

They retreated together, the forest closing behind them with deliberate calm. Roots slid back into place. The altar’s hum faded, leaving only the distant roll of thunder and the promise of rain.

As they reached the ridge, Shika glanced back once more.

She could have sworn something watched them go.

The storm finally broke as they disappeared into the trees.

And somewhere beneath the valley, an old pact waited—unfinished, unforgotten, and no longer patient.

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