When Fauna came to herself, she was suspended on the fragile line between reality and dream.
The chaos of the arena was far behind her now, yet its echoes still rang inside her mind. Screams. The thunder of collapsing stone. And above all—
the whispers.
"Run, hybrid," the voices carried by the wind hissed.
"Thank you, Fauna…"
"Thank you, hybrid…"
Some of them felt achingly familiar. She was certain she had heard these voices before—on storm-filled nights, in half-forgotten dreams, in moments when sleep weighed heavy on her chest. But now they circled her like shadows given breath.
Fauna was drifting.
After the explosion in the arena, she could no longer feel her own weight. She could not tell whether her feet were touching the ground or whether she was floating just above it. People were shouting, pushing, trampling over one another—but no one seemed to see her. It was as if she no longer existed to them.
Among the thousands of spirits she had just set free, Fauna herself had become one of the unseen.
The voice that had spoken to her in her dreams since childhood now battered against the walls of her mind.
"Run!"
Her legs gave out. Her thoughts scattered like ink spilled into water. She surrendered to the wind—not to flee from her father's claws, not to chase prey through the trees, but because she no longer had the strength to fight.
The wind answered.
It wrapped around her like invisible arms and carried her deep into the forest—into its darkest heart, where no foot dared tread.
Then—
everything stopped.
The forest fell silent.
No insects. No rustling leaves. Not even the breath of the earth itself. It was as though the world had drawn in a single, enormous breath and was holding it, waiting to see what Fauna would do next.
And then, the call came.
It was not a word.
Not a direction.
It was a pull.
An irresistible force rising from the deepest part of her soul, as though unseen fingers had reached through the cracks in her heart and were gently, relentlessly drawing her forward.
Fauna thought she was walking.
In truth, she was drifting through the thick, blackened air of the marsh.
The Forgotten Marsh.
She stopped at its edge.
The water was pitch-black, its surface dotted with ancient lotus flowers that never withered. They watched her, unmoving.
She did not hesitate.
Fauna stepped into the mud-dark water.
First her feet.
Then her knees.
Then her entire body.
As the marsh swallowed her, she did not feel as though she were drowning.
She felt as though she had returned to a mother's womb.
"It was you," Fauna whispered as the water filled her lungs.
"You were the one who spoke to me all this time."
Silence.
The marsh neither killed nor saved.
It remembered.
It was the forest's memory—the essence of every fallen leaf, every spilled drop of blood, every life that had ended within its borders.
As Fauna sank to the bottom, she saw herself.
No—
themselves.
A small child stood before her, eyes the color of honey, carrying the fragile innocence of a girl untouched by the world.
Beside her stood a wolf—silver-furred, massive, feral, its burning eyes alive with ancient fury.
Next to the wolf was a witch, her posture bent beneath immense power, her shoulders heavy with the weight of centuries-old grief.
And finally—
the last form.
Shapeless.
Faceless.
Silent.
Yet more real than all the others combined.
The marsh did not speak.
But Fauna felt pain.
Not of the body—but of the soul.
She felt herself tearing apart at the smallest seams, every fragment of her being pulled in a different direction.
I'm breaking, she thought.
I'm fading.
Then the voice rose again, flowing through the water like a submerged melody.
"Your soul was torn by a power it could not carry alone, Fauna," it said softly.
"Your witch blood longs to burn the world and claim the throne.
Your wolf blood yearns to build a pack and tear down the cold dominion of witches."
The voice deepened.
"You cannot survive this conflict. It will consume you from within.
But understand this—I am not destroying you."
A pause.
"I am uniting you."
Golden light seeped into Fauna's fractured soul, threading through her like needles of fire. She existed in another plane now, watching as her scattered essence was sewn back together with strands of molten gold.
In the waking world, the marsh's waters closed her wounds, sealing torn flesh with silver luminescence, restoring what magic had burned away.
Fauna was not merely healing.
The forest was opening its memory to her.
She saw visions—
Her mother's footprints left in the mud of this very marsh.
Her father's tears falling into its waters.
Then she saw a witch and a wolf losing themselves in one another—
an impossible union of love and pain, of defiance and sacrifice.
"Who are they?" Fauna whispered.
The man in the vision felt unbearably familiar. Too close. Too real.
No answer came.
Instead, the images shifted.
She saw Mortia.
The Witch Queen stood in the heart of the forest on a moonless night, sealing a grave with ancient magic. Triumph twisted her features—but beneath it, fear flickered.
Fauna saw the arena crack.
Spirits screaming as they escaped.
She saw Mortia's hands trembling.
The pain faded.
Her soul locked into place.
She was no longer merely wolf.
No longer merely witch.
She was something beyond both.
With a sharp gasp, Fauna burst from the marsh waters, lungs filling with the forest's icy air as though waking from an eighteen-year-long breathless sleep.
The visions remained vivid in her mind.
Her heart felt heavier than ever.
She opened her eyes, expecting only trees.
Instead—
Arena master stood at the marsh's edge, his silver whip clenched tight in his fist, staring at her in pure horror.
He could not tell whether the being who had risen from the waters was a girl—
or a goddess reborn.