The map was a liar.

  Aeris knew this the moment she unfolded it in the damp gloom of the Inkblight, its edges curling like a dying insect’s legs. The vellum—supposedly woven from phoenix feathers—was half-eaten by embers, its ink bleeding where the burns had gnawed through place names and landmarks. What remained was a skeletal sketch of a path that might have never existed.

  “This,” she said, flicking a flake of charred parchment off the surface, “is useless.”

  Harlan, crouched beside her with his alchemist’s lenses strapped to his face like a beetle’s eyes, didn’t look up. “It’s not useless. It’s challenging.”

  “It’s a scrap of kindling with delusions of grandeur.”

  “And yet,” Harlan said, prying the map from her fingers with the delicacy of someone handling a venomous snake, “it’s the only scrap that mentions the Hollow King’s first tomb.”

  Aeris scowled. The air in the Inkblight clung to her skin, thick with the scent of wet ink and rotting paper. The trees here weren’t trees at all—not really. They were towering shelves of petrified books, their spines split open to reveal hollow cores where stories had decayed into whispers. Every step stirred the undergrowth of loose pages, their words half-melted into the soil.

  She hated this place.

  Harlan adjusted his lenses, squinting at the map. “The burns aren’t random. They’re deliberate. Someone didn’t want this found.”

  “Or,” Aeris said, nudging a crumbling folio with her boot, “someone tried to read it too close to a fire.”

  Harlan ignored her. “There’s a pattern. The burns form a shape—see?” He traced a finger along the jagged gaps. “A crown.”

  Aeris leaned in. The missing pieces did resemble a circlet, if she tilted her head and squinted. “Or a child’s drawing of a snake eating its own tail.”

  Harlan exhaled through his nose. “You’re impossible.”

  “And you’re wasting time.” She straightened, scanning the skeletal forest. The Inkblight had a way of shifting when you weren’t looking—paths appearing and disappearing like sentences scribbled out in haste. “If we’re following a map that’s actively sabotaging us, we’ll need a guide.”

  Harlan folded the map carefully. “And where, exactly, do you propose we find one?”

  A voice answered from the trees:

  “You could try asking.”

  A figure stepped out from behind a book-trunk, their skin a patchwork of inked landscapes. Rivers ran down their arms, mountains rose along their collarbones, and their left cheek bore a tiny, perfect compass rose.

  Aeris’s hand went to her dagger.

  The stranger grinned, teeth white against the dusk. “Relax. If I wanted you dead, I’d have let the Inkblight do it. You’ve been walking in circles for an hour.”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Harlan blinked. “We have?”

  “Oh yes.” The stranger plucked a moth from the air, its wings dusted with faded script. “This forest loves recycling lost things.” They released the moth, watching it flutter into the shadows. “I’m Wispin. Cartographer, occasional poet, and—” they tapped the map curling over their right wrist, “—unlikely savior of idiots with burned maps.”

  Aeris didn’t lower her dagger. “How do we know you’re not one of the things that lives here?”

  Wispin’s smile didn’t waver. “Because the things that live here don’t bother with names.” They held out their hand, palm up. A tiny inked flame flickered in the center. “Paths are just stories you believe in. Yours is interesting. Can I see?”

  Harlan hesitated, then handed over the ember-eaten map.

  Wispin unfolded it, their eyes darting across the burns. After a moment, they laughed—a soft, papery sound. “Oh, this is good. It’s not just a map. It’s a test.”

  Aeris’s grip tightened on her dagger. “What kind of test?”

  Wispin looked up, their gaze sharp. “The kind that eats the unworthy.”

  Wispin led them through the Inkblight with the casual confidence of someone walking through their own kitchen at midnight. Their inked skin shimmered when stray beams of light pierced the canopy—fleeting glimpses of cities and seas that Aeris couldn’t recognize.

  "Keep up," Wispin called over their shoulder, ducking under a low-hanging branch that wept ink. "The forest rearranges itself when it gets bored."

  Aeris stepped over a puddle of black liquid that reflected her face back at her in distorted, word-fractured pieces. "Charming."

  Harlan, ever the scholar, lagged behind, pausing to examine the occasional half-legible page caught in the undergrowth. "This one mentions the Hollow King's coronation," he said, peeling a damp sheet from a rock. "But the ink's run. It just says 'and the crowd wept—' before it dissolves."

  Wispin didn't stop walking. "That's not decay. That's editing."

  Aeris frowned. "What?"

  "The forest eats regrets. Some stories get... revised." Wispin flicked a moth off their shoulder. "The truth's still here. Just harder to find."

  Aeris's orb recorder—a delicate glass device meant to preserve unstable memories—hummed at her hip, its surface fogging with condensation. She ignored it.

  The ruin announced itself first by scent: burnt sugar and wet stone. Then by sound—a low, resonant hum that made Aeris's teeth ache.

  It was a domed structure, half-swallowed by the earth, its walls carved with reliefs that might have depicted kings or monsters or both. The stone was pockmarked with holes where pages from the forest had lodged themselves like desperate parasites, their words straining toward the building.

  Wispin stopped at the entrance, their inked hands flexing. "Here we are."

  Harlan adjusted his lenses. "The humming—is that—?"

  "Memory," Wispin said. "The kind that doesn't want to be forgotten." They pressed a palm to the ruin's wall. The tattoos on their arms rippled, as if disturbed by a current. "It's loud today."

  Aeris unhooked her orb recorder. The glass was fever-warm. "Let's make this quick."

  Inside, the air was thicker, the hum settling into Aeris's bones like a second pulse. The walls were lined with niches, each holding a single, perfect object: a child's shoe, a broken quill, a lock of hair tied with red string.

  Harlan reached for the quill.

  "Don't." Wispin caught his wrist. "Those aren't artifacts. They're anchors."

  Aeris's recorder flared to life, its light casting jagged shadows. Through the glass, the humming resolved into something almost like voices—

  —"you promised—"

  —"the crown doesn't forgive—"

  —"why did you let me forget?"

  Then the orb shattered.

  Glass rained onto the stone floor. The voices stopped.

  For a heartbeat, there was only silence.

  Then the ground trembled.

  A seam split the center of the ruin, dust spiraling upward as the stone yawned open, revealing a staircase spiraling into darkness.

  The steps were made of ash and bone.

  Wispin exhaled. "Well. That's new."

  Aeris stared into the abyss. The air rising from it smelled like burnt paper and—

  —and snow?

  Harlan swallowed audibly. "We're going down there, aren't we?"

  Wispin's grin was all teeth. "Paths are just stories. This one's waiting for you to turn the page."

  Aeris unsheathed her dagger. The metal reflected the staircase's impossible depth.

  "Fine," she said. "But if this ends with another cryptic ghost, I'm setting the forest on fire."