The moment we crossed the invisible threshold into Morvalis, I made a decision.

Not a heroic one.

Not a noble or selfless one.

A coldly practical one.

I was going to survive this place.... no matter what it took.

And to survive, I needed someone stronger than me. Someone who could stand in front when everything inevitably went wrong. Because deep down, I knew it would. Danger didn’t whisper in places like this; it waited with open jaws.

I wasn’t stupid enough to pretend otherwise.

My eyes moved slowly across the group, calculating, measuring, weighing each person like pieces on a deadly chessboard.

Ivy would have been the obvious choice.

Strong. Composed. Always alert, with sharp instincts and a steady hand in a crisis.

But Ivy didn’t like me.

That much was painfully, crystal clear.

Worse... she had already written me off. I could see my death reflected in the way she looked at me: distant, resigned, as if I were already a ghost haunting the edges of their future. She wasn’t waiting for me to prove her wrong. She was simply waiting for the moment I confirmed what she already believed.

So no. Not her.

Thorne...

He was familiar. Battle-ready. Reliable in a fight when it truly mattered.

But he was also... complicated.

An enemy, or something dangerously close to one. Trusting him felt like stepping onto thin ice over a frozen lake and praying it wouldn’t crack beneath my weight. One wrong move, one shift in his unpredictable mood, and I could find myself sinking fast.

That left two options.

Elion.

And Ashriel.

Elion was already beside me. Already there, whether I welcomed his presence or not, a constant, shameless shadow with too much confidence and not enough boundaries.

And Ashriel...

Ashriel was neither friend nor enemy.

A neutral force. Unreadable. Detached.

Which, strangely enough, made him feel safer than both of the others combined.

So that was it.

My quiet, calculated choice.

Stick close to strength.

Stay where the odds of survival were highest.

Keep my head down and my instincts sharp.

Simple. Practical. Necessary.

---

But the moment I truly stepped fully into Morvalis, everything I thought I knew shattered.

Because it wasn’t what I expected.

Not even close.

It was... beautiful.

The air felt lighter here, softer, carrying a faint, intoxicating sweetness that had no right to exist in a place we had been so violently warned against.

The ground opened up into a vast, rolling field blanketed in flowers.... endless, swaying rows of them blooming in colors so vivid and pure they almost seemed unreal, stolen from some painter’s fever dream.

Soft, ethereal blues. Deep, velvety violets. Pale, liquid golds. Shades of red so rich they looked as though they had been brushed onto the earth by careful, loving hands.

They swayed gently in a breeze I could barely feel, moving in perfect unison like they were breathing, alive, aware, watching.

Sunlight filtered through the canopy of tall, elegant trees, casting delicate golden patterns that danced across the grass like scattered coins. Everything looked peaceful. Serene. Almost sacred.

Too peaceful.

"This..." I murmured under my breath, unable to stop myself as I took a slow, hesitant step forward. "This is Morvalis?"

It didn’t feel like danger.

It didn’t feel like death.

It felt like a hidden garden. A perfect, untouched paradise that had somehow slipped through the cracks of the world.

"Don’t touch anything," Kaden’s voice cut through the stunned silence, sharp and urgent.

"Stay alert," Ivy added immediately after, her tone colder and firmer than steel. "Nothing here is what it looks like. Trust nothing."

But I barely heard them.

Because my gaze had locked onto one particular flower standing out from the rest.

It was different.

A soft, glowing white, its petals almost translucent, catching and refracting the light in a way that made it shimmer with an inner radiance. Delicate veins of silver ran through it like frozen starlight.

It was... breathtaking.

Before I could think....

Before reason or caution could catch up with me

I reached out.

"Nyx, don’t...."

Too late.

My fingertips brushed gently across the luminous petals.

And everything changed in an instant.

---

The air shifted violently.

The sweetness turned sharp and cloying, twisting into something suffocating and rotten. The vibrant colors around us bled and darkened, their soft hues rotting into deep, bruised shades that felt wrong.... violently, unnaturally wrong.

The ground beneath our feet began to pulse, as though something massive and alive had just woken from a long, hungry slumber.

The elegant trees bent at impossible angles, their graceful branches stretching and curling like skeletal fingers reaching out to seize whatever they could touch.

The beauty decayed in seconds.

Revealing the truth underneath.

Something in ancient book stories.

Something real.

Something that feels dangerously alive.

My head spun violently. A sharp, crushing pressure slammed into my mind, like invisible claws forcing their way inside, scraping against my thoughts, my memories, my very sense of self.

And then....

Darkness swallowed me whole.

I didn’t hit the ground.

That much I knew.

Because I felt strong arms catch me before my body could collapse.

Firm.

Close.

Unyielding.

But I couldn’t move. Not even a finger.

I could still hear everything around me with painful clarity.

Every word.

Every ragged breath.

Every shift of boots against the grass.

Every heartbeat.

"...we just got here.... That’s exactly what I’m saying!"

Kaden’s voice, raw with anger and frustration.

"She hasn’t even lasted five minutes and she’s already dragging us into trouble! I swear, if this is how the rest of this trip is going to go...."

I wanted to open my eyes.

To sit up.

To snap back at him with something sharp and defiant.

But I couldn’t.

It was as if my body no longer belonged to me.

Something soft, heavy, and suffocating had wrapped around my limbs and mind, forcing me into perfect, terrifying stillness. Keeping me quiet. Keeping me trapped inside my own skin.

"If I start cursing right now, I won’t even run out of languages!"

"That’s enough," Ivy’s voice cut in, sharp but tightly controlled. "There’s nothing we can do anymore... It happened already."

Of course she would agree.

"She’s unconscious," Elion said, his voice much closer now, surprisingly calm despite the chaos.

Unconscious?

No.

I was right here.

Listening.

Just trapped in my own body.

Helplessly aware of every single second.

"I’ll carry her."

A brief, heavy pause followed.

Then...

"No, don’t touch me" I thought but nobody heard me

Thorne.

His voice was firm. Final. Leaving no room for argument.

There was a shift in movement. The exchange of weight.

Different arms surrounded me now.

Stronger.

Colder.

But undeniably steady.

Elion didn’t argue.

Didn’t fight for the right to hold me.

He simply let Thorne take me... and quietly picked up my fallen bag instead.

And I felt every second of it.

The way Thorne’s arms tightened around me with careful, almost possessive strength.

The steady rhythm of his breathing against my hair.

The heat of his body cutting through the sudden chill that had overtaken Morvalis.

Aware.

Present.

Just Trapped

And for the first time since stepping into this deceptively beautiful nightmare...

I felt something far worse than fear.

Helplessness.

Complete, soul-crushing helplessness.