The soft glow of dawn brushed the village, yet Lucas couldn't shake off the questions that had taken root since the tavern. His mind drifted to the mapmaker, Harlen, and the parchment filled with swirling lines and ancient glyphs. Who would draw a map to a place no one dared to name? And why had Harlen warned him not to follow it?
Lucas sat by the window of the room he'd rented above the blacksmith's forge. Outside, villagers passed by with routines as familiar as breathing—children chasing chickens, merchants unloading wares, and the blacksmith's hammer ringing through the air like a heartbeat of the town.
Yet Lucas felt out of step with it all. His hands rested on the small leather-bound journal he had found tucked into his coat. It was the one thing he'd kept from his life before waking in this strange world. He flipped it open to the only words he'd written since arriving:
"There are no coincidences."
Harlen was sitting in the square as Lucas approached, the morning sun glinting off the man's silver-threaded hair. The mapmaker had a flask in one hand and a loaf of bread in the other.
"You've got the look of someone who didn't sleep much," Harlen said without looking up.
Lucas hesitated, then sat across from him. "And you've got the look of someone who knows more than they let on."
Harlen chuckled. "You're not wrong."
"I need to know about the place on that map," Lucas said, his voice firmer than he felt. "The ruins, the marker—what's there?"
The older man sighed and set down his flask. For a moment, the weight of years seemed to settle on his shoulders. "You think you're the first to ask?" Harlen leaned closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. "There's a reason I don't sell maps to strangers."
Lucas bristled. "I'm not just a stranger—"
"Yes, you are," Harlen interrupted, his gaze sharp. "You're new here, and you don't understand what you're asking for. Those ruins are cursed ground. People who go there don't come back."
"Maybe they didn't know what they were doing," Lucas said, the challenge clear in his voice.
Harlen's laugh was dry and humorless. "And you do?"
Lucas didn't answer. Instead, he pulled the map from his satchel and spread it across the table. The glyphs shimmered faintly in the morning light, as though alive.
Harlen stared at it, and his face darkened. "That ink—" He reached out, then snatched his hand back as though burned. "Where did you get this?"
"I found it." Lucas lied, the truth too complicated to explain. "What does it mean?"
Harlen looked as though he might refuse to answer, but then he shook his head. "It's not the map you should fear, boy. It's the path it shows."
Later that day, Lucas found himself walking the edges of the village, where the forest loomed dark and uninviting. The map felt heavier in his bag with each step, as though it wanted to be opened. To guide him.
He stopped by a small cottage at the edge of the woods, where an elderly woman sat weaving baskets. Her gnarled hands moved with practiced ease, yet her eyes seemed to see straight through Lucas.
"You're the one Harlen warned about," she said without preamble.
Lucas froze. "He sent you to spy on me?"
The woman chuckled. "Spy? Hardly. But I've lived here long enough to know when trouble walks into our little haven." She gestured to the bench beside her. "Sit, boy."
He obeyed, though every instinct told him to leave.
"Do you believe in fate?" she asked, her voice soft but probing.
Lucas considered lying, but something about her made him answer truthfully. "I don't know."
She nodded as though she'd expected the answer. "The forest you're looking to enter doesn't care what you believe. It will test you all the same."
"What's in the forest?" Lucas asked.
"Echoes," she said. "Of things that were and things that should never have been. And if you're not careful, it'll make an echo out of you too."
As dusk settled, Lucas stood at the forest's edge, the map open in his hands. The path was clear, but his resolve wavered. The village seemed to hold its breath behind him, and the first whispers of the night stirred in the trees.
He took a step forward, the weight of every warning pressing against him. Yet something deeper—something older—pulled him onward.
The forest swallowed him whole.