The mist over Witherwood hung thick and syrupy, clinging to cloaks and curling into boots. Legends said the forest was older than the moon and twice as temperamental. The villagers of Latchmere called it cursed. To Alin Rowe, apprentice oathkeeper and part-time cartographer, it simply looked like unfinished business.

“Remind me,” grumbled Threnna, shouldering her halberd and brushing moss from her pauldrons, “why exactly are we following a dead man’s riddle into a place where trees go to die?”

Alin unfolded the parchment again, its edges frayed like old nerves. “Because this dead man – Sir Eldric Dawn – was the last person to bind the Dread Vow and live. His oath is still echoing somewhere in here. We follow that echo, we find the sigil, and I get my seal.”

“And I get paid.” Threnna grumbled silently.

They entered the woods at the break of the sixth chime, where sun and shadow negotiated the terms of morning. Even the birds seemed hesitant. The trees, gnarled and bone-pale, leaned inward like gossiping widows. Somewhere deeper in the gloom, a tree sang.

Not in any language Alin knew. The sound was like violin strings bent through sorrow and earth.

Threnna froze. “That’s not wind.”

“No. It’s the Mourningwood. The forest remembers.”

Deeper in, the forest grew stranger. Flora curled in Fibonacci spirals. Mushrooms glowed softly with amber regret. The deeper they walked, the more Alin could feel the bindings of past oaths – tangible, like tension in a drawn bow. Words spoken here did not fade; they etched themselves into bark and bone.

At the hollow heart of a twisted ash tree, they found it: the glyphstone. It pulsed faintly, runes shifting like tired sighs. Alin knelt.

“By ink and intent, I call thee forth. Echo of vow, echo of pain.”

The stone shimmered, and a voice – a weary echo of Sir Eldric – slithered into the clearing.

“To bind the Dread Vow is to chain oneself to the promise of memory. I kept my word. Gods forgive me.”

A skeletal figure emerged from the shadows – Sir Eldric himself, or what little remained. Rusted plate, hollow eyes, sword dragging through the mulch with a rasp.

Threnna stepped forward, blade at the ready. Alin held her back. “Not a wraith. A witness.”

Sir Eldric bowed his head. “You seek the seal? Then know the weight. Speak your vow, and carry the burden.”

Alin took a breath. He felt the forest leaning in. Listening.

“I vow to speak truth where lies offer ease, to remember names others forget, to bind oaths not for glory, but for need. I vow… to remember.”

Silence. The glyphstone flared.

Sir Eldric smiled.

Then faded.

Threnna exhaled. “That’s it?”

Alin lifted the glowing sigil, now etched on his palm. “Now I’m an oathkeeper.”

A low groan rolled through the woods.

“And,” he added grimly, “now the forest remembers me.”

They turned back toward Latchmere.

The trees watched them go.