The morning had barely settled into itself when Cassiopeia finally asked the question that had been clawing at her throat since they’d left, the words forcing their way out not because she had found the right moment, but because holding them in any longer felt like choking on something sharp and unfinished.

"I understand Phei sending me to do this..."

Her boots crunched against fallen leaves, the brittle sound unnaturally loud in the stillness that stretched between them, each step disturbing a fragile quiet that did not belong to a living forest.

The air carried the faint chill of early dawn, thin shafts of golden light slipping through the dense canopy above, scattering across bark and soil in fractured beams that illuminated drifting dust and the faint tremble of leaves stirred by a hesitant wind.

It should have felt calm.

Instead, it felt ALIVE... like something was listening.

Sienna walked ahead of her—smaller, younger—moving through the forest with an ease that felt less like navigation and more like quiet ownership, her steps light, measured, unbothered by the uneven ground or the twisting roots that broke through the earth.

Branches did not brush her shoulders. Leaves did not dare cling to her clothes.

The forest seemed to part just enough to allow her passage without resistance, as though acknowledging something older than itself.

"... what I don’t understand," Cassiopeia continued, her voice tightening despite her attempt to keep it level, irritation slipping through the edges, "is why you would tag along. As if you’re worried I’d betray him."

Sienna stopped.

The motion was immediate and absolute.

She had been walking, the next second she stood frozen mid-step as though something had reached into reality itself and pressed pause on her existence. Even the faint drift of dust caught in the sunlight seemed to hesitate for that fraction of a second, as if movement itself had been denied permission.

She turned her head.

Just slightly.

Just enough for Cassiopeia to fall into the edge of her vision.

She said nothing.

Then resumed walking.

Cassiopeia stood there for a breath too long, her chest tightening, irritation rising through her ribs like something that had been waiting for permission to erupt, sharp and unwelcome.

Her mouth opened slightly, then closed again, the silence left behind by Sienna’s non-response heavier than any insult.

Of all three sisters, Sienna irritated her the most.

It wasn’t just that she didn’t speak—it was that when she did, it mattered too much.

Her words were never casual, never wasted. They landed with precision, cutting deeper than necessary, exposing flaws with quiet cruelty. She moved through space like a ghost that resented being acknowledged, her silence more oppressive than noise, her presence heavier than absence.

In all the years Cassiopeia had been her aunt—yes, aunt, the family tree was a disaster—Sienna had spoken to her maybe a hundred times in all her entire seventeen years.

Yes, Cassiopeia had counted.

Her jaw tightened as she stepped forward, her longer stride closing the distance quickly until she walked just behind Sienna’s shoulder, her presence pressing forward whether the girl acknowledged it or not.

"News flash, girl—I can’t betray him." The words came out sharper now, frustration leaking into them despite her effort to contain it. "He’s my—he’s—"

The word caught.

Refused to form.

Something inside her tightened around it, choking the truth before it could fully emerge.

Sienna glanced up at her—because she had to look up, because Cassiopeia’s taller frame cast a shadow over her—and spoke with quiet ease that carried far more weight than it should have.

"You’re his slave. I get it. It’s nothing to brag about."

Cassiopeia’s breath stalled.

Her mouth opened.

Closed.

Opened again.

"How—" Her hand shot out before she could stop herself, fingers gripping Sienna’s shoulder, forcing her to stop, forcing her to turn.

"How do you know that? Who told you? Did Phei tell you... does he go around telling people? Does anyone else know?" Her grip tightened, nails pressing through fabric. "For fuck’s sake, say something! So, he sent you to spy on me? Make sure I complete the mission? He should know I can’t betray him—I literally can’t, the bond doesn’t—"

Sienna stared up at her.

The irritation was subtle but unmistakable — a faint tightening around her eyes, a slight flare of her nostrils. The look of someone who had been forced to endure noise when silence was the only acceptable state of existence in her life.

She was so much smaller than Cassiopeia. Shorter by nearly a head. Body still caught somewhere between girl and woman, all sharp angles where Cassiopeia was soft curves, all contained stillness where Cassiopeia was restless motion.

But when she spoke, the size difference inverted.

"I’m not here because of Phei."

The words were flat. Final.

"I’m here because you’re incompetent. And weak." Sienna’s gaze didn’t waver. "For what’s going to happen."

Cassiopeia’s hand dropped from her shoulder.

"Also," Sienna added, already turning to walk again, "Grandma sent me. So shut up and walk."

She moved forward.

Left Cassiopeia standing there.

Grandma.

The word echoed strangely in the morning air.

What did she mean, Grandma sent her?

And what they were going to do didn’t require — shouldn’t require —

Cassiopeia exhaled through her nose.

Ran a hand through her hair.

And walked faster to catch up.

****

They arrived to it in silence.

Not the quiet of peace, nor the natural lull between breaths, but a strained, listening stillness —as if the world itself had lowered its voice in anticipation of something it did not fully understand.

The forest held around them like a living cathedral. Towering trees rose in ancient stillness, their trunks thick and dark, bark split with age and quiet endurance.

High above, a canopy of leaves filtered the morning light into soft, fractured beams that fell in pale gold across the forest floor. Dust motes drifted lazily through those rays, suspended in the gentle breath of dawn.

Twigs snapped faintly beneath their steps, leaves shifting in quiet protest as boots disturbed the fragile calm.

It should have felt peaceful and alive around here like before but—

Instead—

It felt wrong.

There were no walls.

No gates.

No visible boundary where reality should have ended.

And yet—

The air ahead was wrong.

Even the forest seemed to know it.

The wind, once soft and wandering, slowed as it approached that unseen threshold, leaves trembling as if reluctant to move forward. The birds that had filled the morning with distant song had gone silent, their absence stretching thin across the trees like something withheld.

The air thickened the closer they came, dense and resistant, like something invisible had been stretched across existence itself and pulled taut until it hummed.

Not with sound, but with presence. With pressure.

A barrier that did not need to be seen to be known.

Cassiopeia slowed first.

The shift in her was subtle, but undeniable. Her steps shortened, boots pressing more carefully against the leaf-littered ground, her posture tightening as her gaze sharpened, eyes tracing something that wasn’t there — and yet absolutely was.

Even the light seemed to bend slightly ahead of her, faint distortions where the golden beams fractured against an unseen surface.

"There," she said at last, voice low, controlled, every syllable placed with deliberate care. "Don’t step any closer without thinking. It’s a barrier... layered, reinforced. You won’t—"

Sienna didn’t stop.

She walked straight into it.

No hesitation or any need for any calculation.

No visible acknowledgment of the warning that hung unfinished in the air.

Dry leaves crushed beneath her boots with soft, brittle snaps as she crossed the final stretch of forest floor. A loose twig cracked underfoot, the sound unnaturally loud in the suffocating stillness.

Her hand rose.

A single finger extended forward—

—and touched nothing.

The world answered with a sharp ripple burst outward, sudden and violent in its clarity, as though reality itself had been struck. The air bent. Light fractured. The golden rays filtering through the trees shattered into jagged reflections—

—and the unseen was forced into existence.

A dome that shimmered in distortion... the ripple going through the whole dome origination from where she’d poked.

Vast.

Perfect.

Blue.

The dome barrier curved high above them in a seamless arc, towering over the forest, swallowing treetops into its curvature. The canopy itself distorted where it met the barrier, branches cut cleanly by its invisible boundary, leaves pressed flat against an unseen wall.