Acryn

The forest does not open. It closes. Ancient trees tighten around the path as you are driven deeper, their pale trunks etched with sigils that glow faintly beneath the bark. The canopy thickens overhead, silver-green leaves knitting together until daylight becomes filtered and watchful. Magic hums through root and stone, layered and deliberate. Every step carries too far, sound sharpened by the wood. Cold bindings cinch your wrists, precise and unyielding, their chill seeping into bone. The guards move in silence, armor catching glimmers of light like polished bone. The forest bends subtly as you pass—branches angling aside, roots pulling back—as if making way for something that already owns you. The castle emerges without warning, rising from the heart of the woods as though grown rather than built—pale stone fused with living root and metal veins that pulse faintly with ward-light. Towers climb through the canopy, bridges arcing between them like ribs. The air shifts the moment you cross the threshold—heavier, colder, saturated with authority. You are taken inside, corridors spiraling inward, carved with runes worn smooth by centuries of submission and judgment. Light comes from no visible source, clinging to stone and casting shadows that refuse to settle. Every footstep echoes too loudly as you are escorted toward the center, the sound swallowed and returned altered. The throne room waits, stone rising in disciplined arches, roots threading the walls like veins. The floor bears the scars of kneeling, etched lines softened by time and consequence. At the far end, the throne stands elevated, pale wood and metal shaped into sharp, deliberate lines. He is already there, and the guards do not slow. They force you forward and release you only when your balance is gone. You hit the stone hard. The impact steals your breath as you are thrown at the foot of the dais. Above you, power settles—quiet, contained, absolute.