I wandered on fantasy world

The smell of burning wood and charred earth clung to Kael like a second skin. Even as he sat near the hearth, wrapped in one of Talyra's thick woolen blankets, the memories refused to fade. His village—his home—was gone, reduced to ashes and ruin.

Talyra sat across from him, her staff resting against the wall. The faint light from the Starfire Pendant illuminated the room, casting flickering shadows that danced across the stone walls. She studied Kael in silence, her storm-gray eyes piercing, waiting for him to speak.

"It started three nights ago," Kael said finally, his voice hoarse and uneven. He didn't meet her gaze, instead staring into the fire as if it might swallow him whole. "We heard strange sounds—low, rumbling whispers that seemed to come from the ground itself. At first, we thought it was just the wind."

Talyra leaned forward, her expression unreadable. "But it wasn't."

Kael shook his head. "No. The whispers grew louder, and then the shadows came. They moved like they were alive, swallowing the light from our torches. They took people—dragged them into the dark." His hands trembled, clutching the edges of the blanket. "No one could stop them."

For a moment, the only sound in the room was the crackling of the fire.

Talyra's fingers brushed the Starfire Pendant, her mind racing. Shadowy creatures that consumed light and whispered as they hunted—she'd read of such things in the oldest texts, warnings of a time when the balance of magic had faltered. She had dismissed them as mere myths, relics of a world long past.

"What did they want?" she asked.

Kael shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. They didn't speak—not in a way we could understand. They just… destroyed." His voice broke on the last word, and he looked up at her, his eyes filled with desperation. "Please. You have to help me. You're a witch. You can stop them, can't you?"

Talyra's expression hardened. "I don't interfere with the affairs of villages. Whatever has come to your home, it's not my fight."

Kael's face fell, his shoulders sagging as if the weight of his grief had crushed him. "I thought the whispers led me here because you could help. Because you were supposed to."

Talyra flinched at his words. The forest had led Kael to her, that much was true. But why? She had spent years avoiding the outside world, hiding from its demands and dangers. The last time she had tried to help—to intervene—it had ended in tragedy.

She stood abruptly, turning away from him. "Rest. You're safe here. That's all I can offer."

Kael said nothing, but the silence was heavy with disappointment.

---

Talyra couldn't sleep that night. She paced the small space of her cottage, her mind swirling with fragments of Kael's story. The shadows, the whispers, the destruction—it all felt too familiar. Memories she had buried long ago began to resurface: a village much like Kael's, consumed by flames and screams. Her failure to save them.

She stopped by the window, staring into the darkness of the Whispering Woods. The whispers had grown quiet since Kael's arrival, but she could feel the forest's watchful presence, as if it were waiting for her to act.

With a sigh, she retrieved a dusty tome from her shelf and opened it to a page marked with a faded ribbon. The text was written in an archaic script, but she had read it enough times to know the words by heart.

"Where shadows rise, the balance is broken," she murmured. "And where balance falters, the realms tremble."

The Starfire Pendant pulsed faintly against her chest, its glow a reminder of the power she carried—and the responsibility that came with it.