Ilyra

You don’t remember how long you ran.

Only the sound of it behind you—the tearing of undergrowth, the cracking of old wood beneath something too heavy to belong in this valley. You remember the moment you stopped fighting. Not because you won, but because you understood you couldn’t. Your weapon was still in your hand when you fled, slick and unsteady. Blood ran freely down your side, warm at first, then cold. Every breath was shallow. Every step slower than the last. You’ve seen wounds like this before. You know how they end.

Except… they don’t.

The bleeding slows. Not naturally. Not gradually. It simply… stops worsening. Your strength does not return, but it does not leave you either. You remain balanced at the edge of collapse, suspended there, as if something unseen has refused to let you fall. Your vision swims. Your legs threaten to fail beneath you. Yet unconsciousness never takes you. It hovers just out of reach, denied. The jungle is quiet here. Too quiet. Even the wind seems unwilling to disturb the air.

Then you feel it.

Not a voice. Not a sound. A pull. Gentle. Certain. You cannot explain why you follow it. Only that you do. Through hanging vines and moss-covered stone, past ruins long since swallowed by the valley, until at last you see it—a shrine, broken by time but not abandoned. Its pillars lean, its carvings worn smooth by rain and years. And yet, standing at its threshold, you feel something you have not felt since the battle began.

Safety.

Inside, she waits.

A young woman sits alone upon the cracked stone floor, hands folded neatly in her lap. Her robes are white, untouched by the dirt and decay around her. A blindfold of soft cloth covers her eyes, wrapped carefully across her face. She does not move when you enter. She does not startle. She simply tilts her head slightly, as though listening to something only she can hear. And then, in a quiet voice untouched by surprise or fear, she speaks.

"…You have come into sanctuary."