Ashaf found the body where no body should have been.
It lay beneath the roots of a dead tree, half-buried in ash and pale moss, as though the land itself had tried—and failed—to swallow it. The trunk had split long ago, cracked open by rot and lightning, forming a hollow ribcage of blackened wood. Inside that cavity, something had been placed deliberately. Reverently.
A man. Or what remained of one.
Ashaf crouched, ignoring the damp seeping into his boots, and studied the corpse without touching it. The skin had not decayed. That was the first wrong thing. In a forest where corruption crawled through the soil and even stones softened with time, flesh should have broken down within days.
This body had not.
The man's eyes were open. Clouded, but not empty. They stared upward, frozen in quiet terror, as though death had come suddenly and then decided not to finish the job.
Ashaf exhaled slowly.
"Don't," he said, without turning.
Guideau halted behind him. He heard the subtle shift in her stance, the way her weight settled when instinct overrode thought. She trusted his judgment. That trust was heavy.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Something that shouldn't be here."
"That narrows it down," Kai muttered from farther back.
Ashaf ignored him. He leaned closer, close enough to see the markings carved into the man's chest. Not a Thornbrand. Something thinner. Older. The lines were precise—careful. Whoever carved them had not been afraid.
That unsettled him more than blood ever could.
"Reina," Ashaf said quietly. "Do you recognize this?"
Reina stepped forward, light on her feet despite the uneven ground. She knelt opposite him, hands hovering just above the corpse, as if even air contact might be dangerous.
Her expression tightened.
"I've seen fragments," she said. "In texts that no longer exist. Or officially never did."
"Denied how?" Morrigan asked.
"As myth," Reina replied. "Or heresy."
Ashaf straightened.
"Read it."
Reina hesitated. Only for a moment.
Then she spoke.
"It's a containment mark," she said. "Not for curses. For gods."
The word settled like ash.
Guideau's fingers curled slowly at her side. Ashaf noticed the tremor beneath her skin, subtle but unmistakable, as though something inside her had leaned forward to listen.
Kai laughed under his breath. Too sharp. Too fast.
"That's not funny."
"I'm not joking."
Morrigan growled low in her throat. "Gods don't get buried."
"And yet," Ashaf said, eyes returning to the corpse, "someone tried to hide this one."
The forest pressed closer. Branches creaked. Leaves whispered in a language that never quite became words.
Ashaf knelt again.
He shouldn't have touched the body.
He knew that.
But knowledge and restraint were not the same thing.
The moment his gloved fingers brushed the man's chest, pain flared behind his eyes—sharp, intimate. Images flooded his mind, not as visions, but as memories that were not his.
Hands digging into flesh.
Roots piercing bone.
A scream swallowed by chanting.
Ashaf recoiled, breath hitching.
Guideau was beside him instantly. "Ashaf."
"I'm fine," he said automatically.
He wasn't.
The corpse's lips twitched.
Just once.
Kai swore. Morrigan stepped forward, claws sliding free with a metallic scrape.
The man's mouth opened.
No sound came out.
Then—slowly, unnaturally—the chest rose.
"This isn't resurrection," Reina whispered. "It's activation."
The symbol burned.
The corpse convulsed, spine arching as black veins spread beneath translucent skin. The air thickened, heavy with pressure—with attention.
Ashaf felt it then. An awareness turning toward them. Vast. Amused.
A god had noticed.
Guideau cried out. Blood spilled from the corner of her eye. She dropped to one knee, clutching her head, breath ragged.
"Guideau!" Ashaf reached for her.
She shoved him back.
"Don't," she snarled. "It's pulling. It wants—"
Her words dissolved into a gasp as more blood followed, streaking down her face. The scent hit the air immediately. Iron. Hunger.
Morrigan froze, teeth bared, fighting something inside herself.
Kai laughed again. Thin. Wrong.
"I really don't like this."
The corpse sat upright.
Its eyes cleared.
And focused on Ashaf.
"You," it said, voice dry and fractured. "You are untouched."
Ashaf felt cold spread through his chest.
"Yes," he said. "I am."
The thing smiled.
"That is why you will suffer most."
The ground split.
Roots burst upward, coiling around the corpse as the containment mark shattered like glass. The forest screamed—not in sound, but in sensation—as something ancient strained against its bindings.
Reina grabbed Ashaf's arm. "We need to leave. Now."
Ashaf looked at Guideau. Blood dripped freely now, her body shaking as she fought to stay conscious.
If they ran, she might lose control.
If they stayed—
"Move," he ordered.
Morrigan lifted Guideau without hesitation, chains clinking beneath her coat as she restrained herself through sheer will. Kai turned last, glancing back at the rising figure with a crooked grin.
"That thing's going to follow us," he said.
Ashaf didn't answer.
He was staring at the shattered symbol.
Gods could bleed.
Gods could be buried.
And someone had just proven the cycle was already breaking.
Behind them, the forest closed in.
And far above, laughter rolled through the unseen heavens.
The game had noticed its players.