Chapter 5 The mark II

The clock struck midnight-and Akira fell.

Wind screamed in her ears as the tower rushed away above her. Her shadow writhed beneath her, a living thing fighting to break free. The mark on her collarbone burned like a brand.

Then-impact.

Not on stone. Not on earth.

On *branches*.

Gnarled arms of ancient oak caught her, cradling her like a child. The tree shuddered, its bark splitting open to reveal a hollow filled with bones and black roses. A voice echoed from the roots beneath her:

*"At last."*

Akira scrambled back, her hands sinking into damp soil that smelled of copper. She wasn't in the academy anymore. The oak stood at the center of a clearing where the moonlight fell wrong-thicker, heavier, like liquid silver pooling on the ground.

Kyler dropped from the lowest branch, landing in a crouch beside her. Blood streaked his temple where the clock tower's gears had grazed him.

"You're alive." His voice cracked. "I wasn't sure-"

The oak groaned.

A woman stepped from the hollow.

Not a woman. Not quite.

Her skin was bark, her hair vines threaded through with thorns. When she smiled, her teeth were acorns split open to reveal tiny screaming faces inside.

**The Dryad Queen.**

Kyler went rigid. "You weren't supposed to wake."

The queen's laugh sent spiders skittering from her pores. "When you plant a Vanthorne in cursed soil, boy, you reap what you sow." She turned hollow eyes on Akira. "And you... you smell of orphanage ashes and answered prayers."

Akira's shadow *detached*-stretching toward the queen like a dog begging for scraps.

---

**The Clearing –

Kyler's knife was at the queen's throat.

"Undo the mark."

The queen sighed, petting Akira's shadow with fingers that left splinters in its darkness. "The forest doesn't give back what it claims. But..." Her nail traced Akira's jaw. "I might trade."

Akira swallowed. "For what?"

"One memory. The one you keep wrapped in thorns at the back of your mind."

The orphanage fire. The screaming. The *man* who'd dropped her on the steps and whispered *"Hide"* before the flames took him-

Kyler's grip on the knife faltered.

The queen smiled.

"Ah. You *both* remember him."

---

**The Roots –

The oak's roots formed a cage around them.

Akira pressed her palms to the earthen walls. "My father."

Kyler wouldn't meet her eyes. "He wasn't-"

"Liar." The queen's voice came from all directions now. "The Vanthornes bound the forest sixty years ago with witch-blood. His blood." She pressed a splintered hand to Kyler's chest. "And yours."

Akira's magic surged. Shadows tore through the roots-

Revealing the bones beneath.

Dozens. Hundreds. All wearing tarnished Blackthorn Academy pins.

The queen crooned, "Every Hunt leaves gifts for the trees."

---

**The Edge of the Woods –

They stumbled into the cemetery as the oak vanished behind them.

Akira's mark had gone dormant. Kyler's knife hand wouldn't stop shaking.

Lena found them kneeling between gravestones, her nose bleeding from whatever magic she'd used to track them. She took one look at their faces and said what Akira couldn't:

"So it's true. The Vanthornes have been feeding students to the woods for generations."

Kyler's silence was answer enough.

Akira touched her shadow-now twined with vines only she could see.

The queen's final whisper clung to her:

*"Next Hunt, little witch, you'll run with the hounds."*