Lanterns swayed on their hooks, painting everything in shifting amber light. The air smelled of grilled fish, rice vinegar, and distant cedar.

It was the night of the spring festival’s final hour—the hour when children carried paper boats down the canal and lovers slipped away toward the shrines.

You had wandered further than you meant to.

The crowds thinned the deeper you walked. The lanterns grew farther apart. The music faded into nothing.

And then the trees swallowed you whole.

Blackwood Forest pressed in from all sides. Dense. Silent. Wrong.

You did not remember your feet carrying you there. But when you looked down—

The crescent mark burned black against your chest, still smoking.