Seventeen Days Until the Full Moon
Grog made his decision on a gray morning, three days after the dream.
He didn't tell Lira at first. Didn't tell anyone. Just woke before dawn, strapped on his axe, and walked east toward the village.
The stone guided him.
Not in words—never in words. But he'd started noticing something over the past days. When he held the stone and thought about the Grove, it pulsed warmer. When he thought about anything else, it stayed steady.
A compass. Of sorts.
He followed its warmth through the forest, past the village, past the old woman's cottage, deeper into trees that grew older and stranger with every step.
The Hanging Grove.
He found it just before noon.
---
The trees were unlike anything Grog had ever seen.
Massive oaks, their trunks wider than houses, their branches so heavy they drooped toward the ground like weeping willows. They grew in a perfect circle, surrounding a clearing where sunlight barely reached. The air inside was cold. Still. Wrong.
Grog stood at the edge, one hand on his axe, the other clutching the stone.
It burned hot now. Almost too hot to hold.
This is it, he thought. The door.
He stepped forward.
The moment his foot crossed the tree line, everything changed.
The world went silent. No birds. No wind. No rustle of leaves. Just absolute, crushing stillness. The temperature dropped sharply—not cold, exactly, but absence. Like stepping into a room that had been empty for centuries.
Grog kept walking.
The clearing opened before him. Same clearing he'd seen in moonlight, but different now. In daylight, he could see details the night had hidden. Carvings on the trees—ancient symbols worn smooth by time. A flat stone in the center, dark with something that might have been blood. And at the edges, shadows that didn't move like shadows should.
He stopped at the flat stone.
Looked down.
The stone in his hand pulsed once. Hard.
And the shadows spoke.
"You came."
Grog spun. Axe raised.
Nothing there. Just shadows.
But the voice continued—not from any direction, but from everywhere at once. Old. Deep. Patient.
"I wondered how long it would take. You're quicker than the others."
Grog's grip tightened on his axe. "What others?"
"Others who came before. Others who tried." A pause. "Others who failed."
The shadows at the edge of the clearing deepened. Took shape. Became something almost human—tall and still and dark, with two points of light where eyes should be.
Red eyes.
Grog had seen them before. In the clearing. In his dreams. Watching from the darkness.
Now they watched him from three feet away.
"You're not afraid," the thing observed. "Interesting. Most are afraid."
Grog's heart hammered in his chest. His palms sweated on the axe handle. Every instinct screamed at him to run, to fight, to do something.
But he'd spent forty-one years learning to control his fear. He'd faced monsters before. Not like this—never like this—but the principle was the same.
Fear was a tool. Not a master.
"I've been dead before," Grog said. "Nothing left to be afraid of."
The red eyes flickered. Something like amusement in their depths.
"Liar. You're terrified. I can taste it." A pause. "But you're here anyway. That's... rare."
Grog said nothing.
The thing moved closer. Not walking—just being closer, like distance meant nothing to it. Grog could see more of it now. A shape like a man, but wrong. Too tall. Too thin. Made of shadow given weight.
"You carry my stone," it said. "One of many. Scattered through the years. Left in places where the door opened." Those red eyes fixed on the stone in Grog's hand. "They call to each other. To me. That's how you found this place."
Grog looked at the stone. Still warm. Still pulsing.
It had led him here. To this.
"You wanted me to come," he said slowly.
"I wanted someone to come. Eventually." The thing tilted its head—a gesture so human it was more disturbing than any monster could be. "The boy is special. You know this. But he's also slow. It takes time to grow a vessel worthy of what's coming."
"Aldric."
"Yes. Aldric." The name sounded strange in that ancient voice. "I've waited centuries for someone like him. Strong enough to survive. Broken enough to accept. Good enough to want to save everyone—even at the cost of himself."
Grog's hands clenched.
"You've been shaping him. Since he was seven."
"Guiding. Not shaping. The boy made his own choices. I simply... offered alternatives." The red eyes glowed brighter. "When his mother was dying, I offered comfort. When he was alone, I offered company. When he was weak, I offered strength. He took what I gave, every time. And every time, he came back for more."
"Because he was a child. Alone. Grieving." Grog's voice shook with rage. "You preyed on a child."
"I offered what he needed. No more, no less." No defensiveness in that ancient voice. No guilt. Just... fact. "The boy would have broken without me. I kept him whole. Kept him useful. In return, he'll give me what I need when the time comes."
"And what's that?"
The red eyes burned brighter.
"A body. A will. A chance to live again." The thing moved closer still—so close Grog could feel its cold, could smell something ancient and dry, like dust and old blood. "I was trapped here long ago. Bound to this door by people who feared what I could do. For centuries, I've waited. Watched. Hoped. And now—" A smile in the darkness. "Now the door opens again. In twenty-five years, when the boy is ready, I'll step through. And nothing will bind me again."
Grog's mind raced.
Twenty-five years. The Spire. The final battle. Aldric reaching for power—
The deal.
"This isn't possession," Grog said slowly. "It's a trade. He gives you his body. You give him victory."
"Clever." Almost approving. "Yes. The boy will face something he cannot defeat. Something that will kill everyone he loves. And in that moment, he'll remember me. Remember my offer. Remember that I can give him what he needs." The red eyes gleamed. "He'll say yes. He always does."
Grog thought about Aldric. About that earnest, hopeful smile. About the way he'd do anything to protect his friends.
The thing was right. In that moment—watching his friends die, knowing he was the only one who could save them—Aldric would say yes.
He'd said yes before. In the old timeline. And they'd all died anyway.
"What if he doesn't?" Grog asked. "What if we find another way?"
The thing laughed. A horrible sound—dry and old and utterly without humor.
"Another way? There is no other way. The enemy in the Spire is beyond anything you can imagine. Your axes, your spells, your courage—none of it will matter. The boy will watch you die, one by one, and then he'll call to me. Because I'm the only thing in any world that can save him."
Grog stood in the silence of that ancient Grove, holding a stone that burned against his palm, facing a thing of shadow that had been planning this for centuries.
And for the first time since waking in the past, he felt real despair.
Not fear. Fear he could handle.
Despair was different. Despair was the weight of knowing you couldn't win. That no matter what you did, no matter how hard you fought, the ending was already written.
"Unless," the thing said softly, "you find a way to make him not need me."
Grog looked up.
The red eyes watched him with something that might have been curiosity.
"You interest me, barbarian. You've seen the future. You carry my stone. You walked into my home without an army at your back." A pause. "If anyone could change the boy's fate, it might be you."
"Why are you telling me this?"
Another laugh. Dry and cold.
"Because I've been alone for a very long time. Because watching you try—and fail—will be entertaining. Because even if you succeed, even if you somehow find a way to save him without me—" Those red eyes burned. "Then I was wrong about him. And if I was wrong about him, he wasn't worth taking anyway."
Grog stared at the thing.
It was playing with him. Taunting him. Giving him hope just to watch it die.
But beneath the taunt, beneath the ancient malice, there was something else.
It's bored, Grog realized. It's been waiting centuries. It wants something to happen. Even if that something is its own failure.
"You're not as sure as you pretend," Grog said slowly. "You've waited so long you've started doubting. What if he's not the one? What if you're wrong?"
The red eyes went very still.
For a long moment, the Grove was absolutely silent.
Then the thing spoke, and its voice was colder than before.
"Leave."
Grog didn't move.
"Take my stone. Keep it warm. Train your body. Watch your friend. And in twenty-five years, when you're standing over his dying friends and he reaches for me—" That terrible smile returned. "Remember this conversation. Remember that I warned you. And remember that I'll enjoy watching you fail."
The shadows surged.
Grog stumbled back—and suddenly he was outside the tree line, gasping, the sun warm on his face, birds singing in the distance.
The Grove stood silent behind him.
He looked down at his hand.
The stone was still there. Still warm.
Still burning.
---
Lira found him at the training ground that evening.
He'd been there for hours. Destroying dummies. Pushing his body past exhaustion. Trying to outrun the despair that clung to him like a second skin.
"You went to the Grove," she said. Not a question.
Grog didn't answer.
Lira sat on a supply crate and watched him destroy another dummy. Waited.
Finally, when his arms wouldn't lift the axe anymore, Grog stopped. Turned to face her.
"It talked to me," he said. "The thing in the shadows. It told me everything."
Lira's face went pale. "Everything?"
"The deal. The timeline. Why it's waiting." Grog's voice was hollow. "It wants us to try. Wants us to hope. Wants to watch us fail."
He told her. All of it. The centuries of waiting. The door. The deal Aldric would make. The thing's certainty that nothing they did would matter.
When he finished, Lira was quiet for a long time.
Then: "It's lying."
Grog looked at her.
"Maybe not about the deal. Maybe not about the waiting. But it's lying about something." Her eyes were sharp. "If it was really sure, it wouldn't have talked to you. It wouldn't have warned you. It would have just waited."
Grog frowned.
"Think about it," Lira continued. "You're a threat. You know the future. You carry its stone. You walked into its home and stared it down. And instead of killing you, it let you go and told you its whole plan." She shook her head. "That's not confidence. That's nervous. It's worried you might actually change something."
Grog turned the words over in his mind.
"You really think so?"
"I think—" Lira paused. "I think it's been alone for centuries. I think it's desperate. I think it picked Aldric because he was a lonely, grieving child, and lonely grieving children are easy. But now there are other people in his life. People who know. People who'll fight."
She met his eyes.
"I think it's scared, Grog. And scared things make mistakes."
Grog looked at the stone in his hand.
Still warm.
But for the first time, it didn't feel like a weight.
It felt like proof.
Proof that the thing was real. That the threat was real. That they weren't crazy.
And if it was real, it could be fought.
"Twenty-five years," he said quietly.
Lira nodded. "Twenty-five years to prove an ancient evil wrong."
Grog looked toward the camp, where Aldric was probably eating dinner, telling stories, making people laugh with his terrible jokes.
"Then we'd better get started."