I had not intended to study the Deepwood. I had merely arranged passage beneath it.

Ximena’s Crownhold lay above the canopy, threaded through the upper reaches where light still meant something. There was only one Hollowhold that led there, a paired ascent cut into living wood and stone, guarded and narrow. Traveling the forest floor was safer than attempting the canopy alone. Everyone knew that.

The Dark between was not a destination. It was the interval.

The Deep Elven Umbral met me at the Deepwood’s edge, where the last true light failed. They did not give a name. Their presence marked the boundary more clearly than any sign.

Before we stepped beneath the canopy, they raised one hand. Their voice was not hushed, only exact. “Light is a beacon, silence is distance. Move if you must. Breathe if you must. Do not add to the forest.”

I acknowledged them and followed.

The light seemed to end all at once.

One step forward and it was gone. No dimming. No warning. The ground vanished beneath me and I tightened instinctively, my foot hovering for a fraction of a breath as if I had missed a stair.

“Breathe, and move,” the Umbral said, already ahead of me.

After a time I could not measure, my eyes adjusted just enough to give the Dark texture. The forest floor returned as pressure and resistance. Roots existed as obstruction rather than shape. Scattered through it were faint points of glow.

They did not illuminate. They simply existed, embedded in bark, in soil, in things I could not see clearly enough to name. Like embers that had never known flame.

I followed the Umbral by absence. Where they had passed, the ground felt settled. Claimed. I placed my feet where the forest had already been disturbed.

That was when the thought took hold.

No one had ever cataloged this.

Not the Deepwood as border or danger or corridor. Not the canopy paths, whose distances were marked and whose holds were named. But this. The floor beneath the great trunks, where light failed completely and record could not be made.

There were no measurements taken here. No accounts written. No names fixed.

The realization burned.

I told myself I would remember. I would hold it intact until I reached Ximena and the light returned. I began composing sentences in my head, compressing what I could not afford to lose.

My fingers brushed the clasp of my journal. The sound it made was small. Dry. Wrong.

A hand closed around my wrist.

I had not felt the Umbral step back. A moment earlier, they had been ahead of me. Now they were close enough that I could feel the pressure of their grip, firm and immovable. They did not pull. They did not squeeze. They simply prevented the motion.

They shook their head once. Up close, I realized the Dark did not seem to limit them at all. It accommodated them. It did not accommodate me.

I released the clasp. The journal remained closed, and we moved on.

Distance unraveled without reference. Time folded inward. The glows shifted as we passed, never brightening, never receding in ways I could track. Without outline or horizon, I began to lose my sense of where my body ended and the forest began.

“How long until—”

My guide stopped. Not abruptly. Deliberately.

“That question isn’t useful,” they said. This time, I noticed their voice was hushed. “Walk.”

I pressed my lips together and followed.

We passed close to one of the glowing growths. Near enough that the faint light brushed the edge of my awareness. I could not see its full shape, only the persistence of its presence.

“That’s what that is,” I said, before I could stop myself. “They glow!”

The next step did not feel the same. I halted. The Dark did not change. There was no sense of retreat, no sound of departure. The space where the Umbral had been was simply unoccupied.

I stood still and listened.

The forest had thinned. Not fallen silent, but reduced. The smaller sounds were gone. Without the Umbral’s movement, distance collapsed. Near and far ceased to mean anything.

I waited.

“Hello?” I called.

Something slow and low answered me, from everywhere at once.