The map was wrong.

Mara knew this because the road had ended about three miles ago, but the forest didn't seem to care. Trees crowded areas where the ink had promised open ground, their branches knitting together overhead until the light above thinned and turned green. The air smelled damp and old, like something sealed too long had only just been opened.

She stopped walking.

The silence wasn’t complete - there were birds, somewhere far off, and the soft ticking sounds of insects - but she felt watched, almost as if the forest was holding its breath, sensing danger. Mara adjusted the strap of her pack and told herself she was being foolish. Maps were wrong all the time. Places changed. Nature took over. That didn’t necessarily mean that anything was wrong.

Still, she didn’t step forward.

Half-buried in leaf litter at her feet laid a stone marker. It was no taller than her knee; it was smooth on one side, split on the other, like it had been broken rather than gently placed down. Someone had carved a symbol into its face; a circle, open at the bottom, with a single line drawn down through it.

Mara had seen this symbol before.

Not in any book. Not on any sign. Not anywhere else, but-

She’d seen it in a dream she barely remembered—one of those dreams that left a feeling behind, the type you remember but don't know why.

Behind her, the forest made a sound.

Not a footstep. Not a gust of wind. Something slower. Heavier.

Mara turned.

There was nothing there.

When she looked back, the symbol on the stone marker started glowing on and off again, releasing a peaceful hum onto the sacred path. It seemed to be speaking to her, telling her to touch it, to interact with it so that its purpose could be fulfilled.

Only the path ahead remained, stretching far into the trees, as if it had always been the only way for her to go.

After a moment, Mara stepped on the stone.

The forest and Mara both exhaled.

Mara followed. It was not as if she didn't want to - but she certainly was not commanding her legs to carry her at the pace they were. For a second, a tune flashed in her min d- Yellow Brick Road - from the film her father had loved in his boyhood. Mara continued.

The path narrowed, then widened again, as if a throat swallowing. Roots curled along its edges like knuckles, but the ground beneath her boots was smooth, worn flat by time. With each step, the green light shifted, warming from moss to gold, and the hum behind her softened until it became part of her pulse. She realized, distantly, that the forest no longer felt like it was watching her. It felt like it was waiting.

She noticed then that the trees were not random. They leaned inward at intervals, forming arches, their bark scarred with variations of the same symbol from the stone. Some were faint, nearly healed over. Others were fresh, pale wood exposed, as if carved only days ago. Mara reached out without thinking and brushed one with her fingers. It was warm.

A memory surfaced—not a dream this time, but a moment: her father tracing a shape on the fogged window when she was small, telling her some roads only appeared when you were ready to walk them. She had laughed then, wiped the glass clean. He was trying to cher her up after she didn't make the gymnastics team. Standing here, she didn’t laugh.

Ahead, the path bent sharply, and for the first time since stepping on the stone, Mara felt her legs slow. The hum deepened. Whatever lay beyond the bend was the reason the marker existed at all.

Perhaps, this was her destiny. Memories rushed through her conscience: playing in the sandbox at home, while her father read a thick tome and her mother watered the garden. In the past, she had remembered attempting to draw the sigil her father had shown her. She never could get it right; her father would caringly correct her and say, "That isn't quite it, Marmar. Remember, you start with the three legs, then add a hoop between each and a triangle on its head." The memories ended. She returned to the present. All that was left was the sigil.

Calling to Mara, the sigil seemed full of direction. Without a second thought, she proceeded to follow the left path, almost unaware that her legs carried her without instruction from her brain. She didn't resist; this was her destiny.

For hours, Mara followed the overgrown path over hills and alongside a shimmering stream. Little sunlight penetrated the towering trees. Occasionally, a toad or squirrel would cross the trail. Lush undergrowth peeked from beneath the massive roots of pines, cedars, poplars, and oaks. Mara was not distracted from the natural beauty of the forest. Only one thought had maintained a hold of her: keep going.

Just as fatigue began to affect her, the trail ended. She never could have expected what she would find at the end of this path. It was old, forbidden, and oppressive. Its granite steps led up to a once-impressive door. The entryway was surrounded by walls of luster and stretched as far as the eye could see in either direction. Dark holes were crudely cut into their surface, likely as windows. The temple, as she came to realize it was, must have been at least 4 stories tall. Mara cautiously walked up the steps toward the door, past some statues of serpent-bear hybrids. In the stone of the gigantic door, her father's sigil had been inscribed.

Mara stared up at the temple. How had it gotten here? And why was her father's sigil, the one he'd taught her so painstakingly, carved on it? For the first time, she looked at the trail behind her and realized just how far she had hiked. The tall, beautiful trees cast long shadows, their leaves lit up gold in the light of late afternoon. She still had a map in her pack, nestled above a day's rations of trail mix and granola bars, but she sensed there would be no use checking it.

Although it was getting into the evening, the air remained warm. Flecks of dust hung suspended in the shafts of sunlight coming down from the canopy, looking like glowing fairy lights. A slight wind rustled through the leaves, sending those lights dancing in little spirals. Air blowing through the black windows of the temple made a whistling sound that reminded her of a ghost from a cheesy movie.

Mara had come this far, and the call to keep moving forward had not ceased. She took another step up the granite stairs, then another. The steps were larger than she was used to, but before she knew it, she stood before the massive door. As if driven by an instinct older than herself, she reached out a hand and touched the sigil on the door.

First the three vertical lines lit up, glowing blue. Then the circles in a light, earthy green. Finally, the triangle lit up in a fiery blaze of gold that hurt Mara's eyes. She averted her gaze until the light died down. When she looked back, the heavy, moss-covered door was nowhere to be found. Shattered pieces of stone lay all over the ground.

The inside of the temple stretched before her, a great hallway with shining walls and crystal statues of strange hybrid animals. It was stunning, but something also felt oppressive, dangerous. The tireless drive that had kept her moving forward all this time was no longer present now that the temple was open, and now that it had vanished, she had a feeling that maybe she had taken this strange and beautiful path a bit too far.

A voice echoed in the back of her mind, a voice that was not her own.

Blazer of trails, what have you done?