The fire had burned low by the time the forest swallowed Venshiro and Rin.
Hana sat with her back against a half-collapsed wall, Surado curled against her side. She had wrapped him in a thick wool cloak, but still he shivered — not from cold, but from something deeper. Fear had a way of settling into the bones, especially in children.
The silence that followed their departure was heavy. Not even the wind stirred.
She could still hear the bell.
It echoed in her skull, softer now, but haunting — a warning that hadn't come too late, only unanswered. The Sentinels' appearance had chatter her, not because she didn't expect them, but because she did.
They weren't just guards of Midoriha.
They were reminders.
She glanced down at her hands. Though they looked gentle — small, calloused, always trembling — they had once shaped Vein magic with precision. She was a healer once. A true daughter of the Verdant Bloom.
Now, she was just a shadow of that.
Surado stirred, his voice muffled. "Sis… is he going to die?"
She flinched. "Who?"
"The man with the sword."
Hana didn't answer right away. She looked into the coals, the dying red glow reflecting off her tired eyes.
"No," she said. "Not tonight."
Surado nodded. He always accepted her words like truth, even when she wasn't sure herself. He was too young to see the cracks in her voice.
She stroked his hair and kissed the top of his head.
Beyond the campfire, the trees shifted — or maybe it was her imagination. Her eyes had begun playing tricks on her again lately. She was too tired for magic, too spent for Vein-sight. Still, a whisper sticked at the edge of her senses.
She wasn't alone.
She reached slowly for the walking stick she kept near. Not a staff — not anymore — but the wood still carried a faint ornament of Midoriha's craft, long dulled.
The whisper came again. Not sound — presence.
Instincts kicked in. Hana shifted Surado gently onto a folded cloak and stood.
"Stay by the fire," she whispered.
She moved toward the ruins' edge, careful not to make noise. She stepped over fallen stone, her breath slow and shallow.
Then she saw it — in the treeline.
A figure.
It stood still, clothed in robes that shimmered like mist, a mask of bone-white covering its face. No eyes. No mouth. Just a single symbol carved into its forehead — a spiral of thorns.
Hana's breath got heavier..
Not Midoriha.
Not one of the Sentinels.
This was something else.
A Vein Whisperer.
She hadn't seen one since the night she fled.
The figure tilted its head slowly. Its hand reached up, fingers too long, skeletal — and pointed toward the fire.
Toward Surado.
Hana's scream never left her throat.
In an instant, she raised the old staff and made a protective glyph mid-air, creating a wood-root like shield. It sparked once — weak, flickering — but enough to form a barrier.
The creature took a step forward and stopped.
They stared at each other.
And then — it vanished.
Gone. Like smoke. Not even a sound left behind.
Hana stood there for what felt like hours, heart beating hard, breath sharp. She felt power mixing in her chest — ache of Vein-use rising through her bones like heat through winter earth.
She walked back to the fire and pulled Surado into her arms.
It was happening again.
The Vein War.
She'd hoped to keep him far from it, hoped to disappear quietly into some forgotten village.
But Venshiro had brought the war to their doorstep.
No — not him.
The sword.
The sword remembered her.
She felt it when she looked at him. A faint echo of the same pulse she once felt years ago in the grove of bleeding trees.
Surado got confused.
"Was someone there?" he asked sleepily.
"Hana swallowed. "No, little one. Just a dream."
But it wasn't.
She looked toward the path Venshiro had taken and whispered, "You're not the only one the roots remember."