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Elara stiffened. Her father had never mentioned a logger from Blackwood. He had never mentioned anything about a Marker Stone, about a prison. But Liam’s words echoed the note that her father had left—the pines do not forget. What is buried will rise. She walked to the table, picking up one of the maps, and traced a line that led from Hollow Pines into the heart of the forest, a line that ended at a small X marked with the words Valley of the Hollow, a line that her father had drawn in red ink, the color of blood.

“This is it,” she said, turning to Liam, the map trembling in her hands. “This is where he was going. This is where the Heart of the Pines is supposed to be.”

Liam leaned forward, his eyes fixed on the map, his breath catching in his throat. “Then we have to go,” he said, his voice firm. “We have to find it. For my sister. For your father.”

Elara hesitated. She had spent three years avoiding the forest, avoiding the memories that it held, avoiding the fear that her father was dead, that his body was lying somewhere beneath the snow, his bones picked clean by the wolves. But the thought of finding him, of bringing him home, of uncovering the truth about the valley that had consumed him—it was too tempting to resist. She looked at Liam, at the hope in his eyes, at the fear that lingered just beneath the surface, and she thought of her father, of the maps, of the note that had haunted her for years.

The pines do not forget.

What is buried will rise.

She made her decision.

“Pack your things,” she said, her voice firm, the words coming out before she could second-guess them. “We leave at dawn.”