The plains once again gave way to trees.

  At first, it was nothing remarkable - scrubby undergrowth, pale bark, wind-bent branches. The kind of half-formed woodland Ren had grown used to since they’d left the outpost behind. But then the trunks thickened, crowding closer together, and the light dimmed into an early twilight despite the sun still riding high above the canopy.

  Ren walked at the flank of the caravan with his bow in hand, his other arm hooked casually through his quiver strap. He noticed it before anyone else - sap dripping from the trees, not amber or resin but something else entirely.

  The liquid gleamed like molten gold.

  The trunks looked wounded, long gashes splitting bark to reveal inner flesh that pulsed faintly with light. Sap welled and ran in slow, viscous streams. Its scent was faintly sweet, almost pleasant, but beneath it was a sharp tang that stung the inside of Ren’s nose.

  Leo was the first to walk up to one, frowning in that restless, hungry way he always did when curiosity got ahead of common sense.

  “It looks… alive,” the young mage murmured. “Not just a secretion. There’s mana inside it. I can see the flow spiraling - ”

  Raven slammed the end of her staff against the ground. “Don’t touch it.”

  Leo blinked. “I wasn’t - ”

  “You were,” Sinclair called from up front. “And if you’re thinking of harvesting any, reconsider. The air tastes wrong.”

  Ren hadn’t noticed the taste until Sinclair mentioned it, but now he did - metallic, sharp, almost electric. As though the grove bled not just sap, but something older.

  The cargo beasts grew restless as the path narrowed. Their low grunts echoed too loudly between the gold-lit trunks. Ren moved closer to one and patted its flank, murmuring to keep it calm.

  Then the buzzing began.

  At first, Ren thought it was just the pressure of the grove playing tricks on his ears. But it grew louder - hundreds of wings thrumming at once, vibrating the air itself. The guards slowed, glancing around.

  From the shadows between the bleeding trees, they emerged.

  Insects - oversized, armored, chitin gleaming black and bronze. Their wings shimmered with oily light. Their mandibles clicked wetly, dripping strands of the same golden sap they fed on. Dozens appeared. Then hundreds.

  Ren loosed an arrow before anyone else could shout. The shot slammed through the thorax of the lead insect, pinning it to a tree. The thing screeched, body writhing, sap oozing from the wound like it was bleeding sunlight.

  The swarm answered with fury.

  “Form up!” Sinclair’s voice cut clean through the rising chaos. “Shields front! Keep them off the animals!”

  Ren nocked another arrow, fired, then another. The air darkened with wings. One bug skimmed the side of his head, mandibles snapping close enough to shear a lock of hair. Ren ducked, drew his dagger, and slashed. The blade sliced through carapace, splitting the thing in half.

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  Golden sap splattered across his cloak. It hissed where it hit the ground.

  “Don’t let it touch you!” Leo shouted, flinging a sheet of flame outward. The blast lit the grove in stuttering gold. Dozens of insects shriveled mid-air - but the sap on their bodies boiled, bursting into sparks that rained dangerously close to the caravan.

  “Watch it!” Ren barked. “This place will go up like dry tinder!”

  “I know!” Leo’s face was tight, pale with strain.

  Raven’s voice slid through the frenzy, calm and precise. “Aim for the wings. Bring them down before they dive.”

  She raised her staff - wind burst outward, scattering a chunk of the swarm. Ren shifted targets, firing at wings until his arm burned. Each insect that fell hit the dirt twitching, sap leaking into the soil. The nearby roots seemed to shiver as they drank it in.

  Drake swung his axe like a man demolishing a wall, each impact cracking carapace. Sinclair moved with brutal, efficient grace - every strike clean, decisive, wasting no energy.

  Still the insects came.

  Ren’s quiver grew lighter. His breathing roughened. Sweat stung his eyes.

  Then the swarm parted for an instant, revealing a larger tree ahead - thicker than the rest, its trunk weeping gold in sheets. At its base lay a pool of hardened sap. And embedded halfway into its bark…

  A cocoon.

  Not silk. Hardened sap. Inside, something shifted, a dim outline pressing against the gold.

  “Sinclair!” Ren shouted.

  The older man followed his gaze, eyes narrowing. “Push forward! Clear a path!”

  The swarm surged as though defending the cocoon. They dove harder, faster, their mandibles snapping with almost purposeful malice.

  Ren broke into a run, arrows flying. One insect slammed into his shoulder, throwing him off balance. He rolled, stabbed upward, and split it open. Sap splattered his face, burning cold. He wiped it off, teeth clenched.

  Leo reached the cocoon first, fire crackling in his hand -

  “No fire!” Raven barked. “You’ll torch the entire grove!”

  Leo cursed, switching forms. Lightning crackled between his palms. He thrust it into the cocoon.

  The golden shell cracked.

  Split.

  And something inside screamed.

  The creature tore itself free - long, jointed limbs, carapace veined with glowing sap, a warped parody of a human face stretched thin across mandibles.

  Ren’s stomach clenched.

  The swarm shrieked, wild with frenzy.

  The creature landed heavily, gouging the dirt as it lunged. Sinclair met it head-on, blade flashing. The first strike cut deep - but sap surged, sealing the wound almost instantly.

  Ren fired an arrow into one of its eyes. The monster shrieked, stumbling. The swarm pressed harder, almost manic.

  “Keep it down!” Sinclair roared. “Don’t let it near the caravans!”

  Chaos bled into desperation. Steel rang. Magic flared. The insects battered at shields. Ren dodged, stabbed, fired until his quiver held nothing but dust. Sap burned holes into the ground wherever it landed.

  He didn’t dare draw on his Threads. Not here. Not with allies inches from him.

  At last, Sinclair drove his blade through the creature’s throat and wrenched downward. Its head tore free. The body convulsed, geysers of sap erupting. The swarm broke, retreating into the golden woods.

  Silence followed - breathing, the crackle of sap hissing against soil.

  Raven’s voice came soft, iron beneath it. “We move. Now. Before this grove births something worse.”

  No one argued.

  They pulled the injured back, bound wounds, soothed the panicked animals, and dragged the caravan out of the grove until the golden glow faded behind them.

  That night, on the open plain, Ren sat alone by the fire, slowly scraping the last of the hardened sap from his dagger.

  He kept seeing its face.

  Almost….human.