Emery gazed up at the Earth Mother in silence.
Up close, the sickness was impossible to ignore. Dark veins crept beneath her skin like ink spreading through water, branching across her temples and disappearing beneath her tangled hair. The light in her evergreen eyes had faded to a faint, weary glow, while the vines wrapped around her limbs hung limp, their leaves curled and brittle at the edges.
She was dying, yet she was still smiling at him.
Then something unexpected happened.
A sharp ache bloomed in Emery's chest, followed by a deep, hollow sadness he could neither explain nor resist. He barely knew this woman, and yet the sight of her suffering stirred a grief within him that felt far too intimate to be his own. It rose slowly, like a tide from the depths, filling him with a quiet sorrow that seemed to reach beyond his memories.
