Blade of the Fallen Kingdom

Chapter 10 – Whispers of the Forest

The forest loomed before them like a wall of shadows. Towering trees clawed at the sky, their branches twisting together into a canopy that swallowed the light. The moment Kael and the survivors stepped beneath it, the world changed.

The air grew heavy, thick with damp earth and the faint scent of rot. The cries of birds echoed once, then died. Even the wind seemed afraid to pass through. The silence pressed against their ears until every step crunched too loudly, every breath seemed a trespass.

Kael moved at the front, Mira beside him. The Blade pulsed faintly at his hip, a heartbeat of shadow. Its voice slithered into his mind. This place remembers. The roots whisper. The dead listen.

He clenched his jaw, refusing to answer.

Behind him, the survivors stumbled through the undergrowth, glancing at every soundless shadow. Children whimpered. Mothers hushed them quickly, as if even the faintest noise might awaken something best left sleeping.

Mira broke the silence at last. “This isn’t natural. Forests should be alive with sound. But this… it’s watching us.”

Kael nodded. He felt it too. A weight in the air, like unseen eyes crawling over his skin.

They marched until dusk painted the canopy in bruised colors. As they set camp in a hollow where the trees thinned, Mira knelt beside Kael.

“Something stalks us,” she whispered.

He scanned the dark. “How many?”

“Not beasts. People.” Her tone was grim. “I saw movement, shapes flitting between trunks. They follow our trail.”

Kael rose to his feet, hand on the hilt of the Blade. The whispers in his mind quickened, eager. Blood waits. Feed me, and their secrets will spill from their corpses.

He ignored it, though his pulse quickened. “We’ll double the watch. No fire tonight.”

The survivors groaned at that—no warmth, no light—but one look from Kael silenced them. Fear of him, sharper than fear of the dark, kept them obedient.

Night settled heavy. The forest swallowed even the stars. Kael sat awake, eyes sweeping the shadows, every nerve tight as a bowstring. Mira crouched nearby, her hand never far from her blade.

Hours passed. Then—a snap. A twig breaking where no survivor had moved.

Kael’s hand shot to his sword. His voice cut the silence: “Show yourself.”

For a heartbeat, nothing stirred. Then a figure stepped forward from the trees. Hooded, cloaked in leaves, moving with eerie silence. Behind him, more figures melted into view, surrounding the camp in a half-circle.

Gasps erupted among the survivors. Children clung to their parents.

The leader lowered his hood. His face was scarred, eyes sharp as a predator’s. He raised a hand in mock peace. “Lay down your weapons. No harm will come to you.”

Mira’s laugh was bitter. “That line usually means harm is coming.”

The man smirked. “Not if you’re wise. You trespass in the Wyrdwood, sacred ground of the Thornbound. Outsiders do not walk here freely.”

Kael’s grip tightened on the Blade. “We don’t seek trouble. Only passage.”

“Passage?” the man echoed, voice cold. “Through our home? You drag cursed steel through roots older than your bloodline. The forest stirs because of you.” His gaze locked on the Blade with hatred. “That sword does not belong here.”

The Blade whispered hungrily. Kill him. He knows me. He fears me. That makes him weak.

Kael forced a breath. “Then guide us out. Let us leave your forest in peace.”

The Thornbound leader chuckled, low and cruel. “Peace is not given. It is bought. And you have nothing to pay but your lives.”

The survivors cried out as the Thornbound raised spears, their tips glinting faintly in the moonless dark.

Mira’s blade hissed free. “We’ll fight, then.”

But before the clash, the forest itself stirred. Roots burst from the earth, curling like serpents. The Thornbound froze, their faces paling. The ground shook, leaves whispering in a thousand voices at once.

Kael staggered as the Blade pulsed violently, shadows writhing around his arm. The whispers of the forest merged with the Blade’s hunger until he could no longer tell them apart.

Free us… Feed us… Bleed them…

The Thornbound leader hissed in fear. “You’ve awakened it.”

“What is it?” Kael demanded.

But the forest answered instead. From the black depths between the trees, a colossal shape began to form—branches twisting into limbs, bark peeling into a maw that split wide, dripping sap like blood.

The survivors screamed. The Thornbound stumbled back, fear breaking their unity.

Kael felt the Blade shiver, begging to be unleashed. Mira shouted, “Kael—if you draw it here, you might doom us all!”

Yet the creature advanced, roots ripping through the camp, seizing a man by the leg and dragging him screaming into the dark.

Kael’s heart pounded. Every eye turned to him. Fear. Desperation. The weight of choice pressed down like stone.

Draw the Blade—and risk unleashing its full hunger. Or resist, and watch the survivors be devoured by the forest itself.

The shadows thickened, the whispers rising to a deafening chorus.

Kael’s hand trembled on the hilt. Mira’s voice cut through the chaos, sharp and desperate:

“Kael—who are you going to save? Them… or yourself?”

The chapter ended in silence, save for the roots cracking through the earth.

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