The darkness smelled of crushed stone and fresh earth. Seraphina came to with the acorn's light pulsing weakly against her palm, its glow barely enough to reveal the ruin surrounding them. Chunks of ceiling lay scattered like broken teeth, their edges gleaming with veins of silver ore. Somewhere in the rubble, Eldri's body lay still—her golden eyes staring sightless at the shattered murals above.
Lysandra's fingers found Seraphina's wrist in the dark. "It's coming," she whispered.
The ground beneath them trembled—not the erratic shuddering from before, but a steady, rhythmic pulse. Like the slow, deliberate footsteps of something vast awakening.
The silver sword lay nearby, its flame extinguished. When Seraphina grabbed the hilt, the eye in its pommel remained shut, its lid sealed like a corpse's.
A sound like splintering wood echoed through the ruined chamber. Then another. Closer.
Seraphina dragged Lysandra upright just as the far wall exploded inward.
Not with force.
With growth.
Great roots burst through the stone, their bark glistening with fresh sap. They moved with terrifying purpose, coiling through the rubble like serpents scenting prey. The largest among them—thicker than a warhorse and studded with knots that resembled screaming faces—paused as if sensing their presence.
The acorn in Seraphina's palm flared to life, its light spearing through the dust-choked air.
The root recoiled.
For a heartbeat, nothing moved.
Then the entire mass of roots surged forward.
Seraphina barely had time to raise the sword before the first root struck. The impact sent her skidding backwards, her boots carving grooves in the stone. The blade's eye snapped open—not with flame, but with a cold, silver light that froze the attacking root in midair. Frost spread across its surface, cracking the bark with audible pops.
Lysandra gasped. "The acorn—"
Seraphina didn't hesitate. She slammed the glowing seed against the frozen root.
The effect was instantaneous.
Silver fire erupted from the point of contact, racing along the root's length with terrifying speed. The chamber trembled as the fire spread—not burning, but transforming. Where it touched, the roots stiffened, their surfaces smoothing into polished silver. The screaming faces in their bark softened, their expressions shifting from agony to peace.
A great, shuddering groan echoed through the tunnels.
The roots weren't attacking now.
They were blooming.
Tiny silver buds sprouted along their lengths, unfurling into flowers that shone with their inner light. The air filled with a scent like rain on summer grass—clean and alive and utterly at odds with the decay that had permeated the forest.
Lysandra's breath hitched. "It's remembering," she whispered.
The sword's light dimmed as the eye in its pommel slowly closed. Seraphina stared at the transformed roots, the truth dawning like the first light of morning.
The acorn wasn't just a key.
It was a memory.
A memory of what the tree had been before the poison. Before the hunger.
A memory of protection, not predation.
From deep below came a sound like a sigh—an exhalation of centuries-old pain. The remaining roots withdrew, their movements slow now, almost reverent. The largest paused before Seraphina, its tip brushing the acorn in her hand with surprising gentleness.
Then it too was gone, retreating into the earth with a final, shuddering breath.
Silence settled over the ruined chamber, broken only by the soft chime of silver leaves stirring in an unfelt breeze.
Lysandra's fingers tightened around Seraphina's wrist. "It's not over," she murmured.
And Seraphina knew she was right.
Because the corpse-king still walked.
And the crown's hunger still festered in his hollow chest.
The silver flowers trembled as though stirred by an unfelt wind, their delicate petals chiming like distant bells. Seraphina knelt in the wreckage of the chamber, her fingers still curled around the now-dormant acorn. The roots had withdrawn, but their luminous blossoms remained, casting shifting patterns of light across the shattered murals.
Lysandra's breath came in shallow gasps beside her. The scar on her sister's chest pulsed faintly, its branching lines glowing brighter with each passing moment. When Seraphina reached for her, the skin beneath her fingers was fever-hot.
"You're burning up," she murmured, brushing sweat-damp hair from Lysandra's brow.
Her sister's sightless face turned toward her, lips parting as if to speak—but no words came. Instead, a shudder ran through her, and the scar on her chest flared so brightly it cast their shadows against the crumbling walls.
Then—
A whisper of movement.
The silver flowers along the transformed roots trembled violently, their petals shedding glowing pollen that hung suspended in the air like minuscule stars. The largest root—the one that had recoiled from the acorn's light—slowly extended toward them once more, its tip splitting open like a budding flower.
Within its glowing heart lay a path.
Not a tunnel, not a doorway, but something in between—a corridor formed of living wood and silver light, its walls pulsing with the same rhythmic glow as Lysandra's scar. The air within smelled of rain and green, growing things, so utterly unlike the cloying decay of the forest above that it made Seraphina's eyes sting.
Lysandra's head tilted toward the opening, her unseeing eyes wide. "She's calling," she whispered.
"Who?" Seraphina's grip tightened on the sword.
"The first. The one they buried." Lysandra's voice was distant, as though she were listening to something far away. "She wants to show us... the beginning."
A chill raced down Seraphina's spine. The memory from the acorn rose unbidden—Anara kneeling beneath the young tree, the untainted circlet in her hands. A vow made in sunlight.
A vow broken in blood.
The root before them shivered, its petals chiming insistently.
Seraphina hesitated only a moment before sliding an arm around Lysandra's waist and helping her to stand. "Then let's see what she has to show us."
The moment they crossed the threshold, the world shifted.
The Heartwood
The corridor was alive.
Not in the way the infected roots had been—with grasping hunger and predatory awareness—but with the quiet, constant hum of a tree's growth. The walls breathed around them, expanding and contracting with silent inhalations. Tiny luminescent fungi dotted the wood like constellations, their pale light guiding their steps.
And the air...
It sang.
A sound so low it was more vibration than noise, thrumming through Seraphina's bones in a rhythm that matched the pulse of the acorn in her palm. Lysandra seemed to hear it clearly—her head tilted as though listening to a voice only she could discern, her fingers tracing patterns in the air as if reading some invisible text.
The deeper they went, the path sloped gently downward. The roots here showed no sign of the corruption that had twisted those above—their surfaces were smooth, their silver blooms glowing with steady light. Yet as they descended, Seraphina noticed darker strands woven through the wood—black veins that pulsed in time with the distant, fading echo of the horn's call.
The corpse-king's influence.
Lysandra stumbled suddenly, her breath catching. "Do you hear that?"
Seraphina stilled. At first, there was nothing but the ever-present hum of the living wood. Then—
A voice.
Faint. Broken.
"Help... me..."
It came not from ahead, but from the walls themselves—from the black veins threading through the roots. Seraphina pressed a hand to the wood, and the moment her skin made contact, the vision struck—
*A man in royal blue robes staggering through these very tunnels, his hands clutching a dagger dripping with poison. His face was younger, unlined by time or treachery, but the eyes were unmistakable.
The corpse-king's eyes.
"Anara!" His cry echoed through the passage, raw with desperation. "Sister, please—"*
The vision shattered as Lysandra yanked her back. "Don't," she warned. "The roots remember everything—even the lies."
Ahead, the corridor opened abruptly into a vast, domed chamber—the heart of the great tree, and at its centre, encased in living wood, stood Anara.
The First and the Forgotten
She was both corpse and sapling—her flesh half-transformed into silvered bark, her blood-moon hair now threaded with living roots. The wooden prison had grown around her, its tendrils weaving through her limbs in a grotesque embrace, yet her face remained untouched by time or decay. Her eyes were closed, her expression peaceful, as though she merely slept.
But the dagger buried in her chest told another story.
It was the same blade from Seraphina's vision—its hilt ornate, its edge still stained with poison after all these centuries. The wood around the wound had blackened, the corruption spreading outward in jagged lines like cracks in glass.
Lysandra made a soft, wounded sound. "He lied," she whispered. "He lied to them all."
The acorn in Seraphina's palm blazed to life, its light spearing through the chamber. The moment its glow touched the dagger, the weapon screamed—a sound of pure, undiluted malice that sent them both staggering back.
The black veins in the walls pulsed violently in response.
And from somewhere far above, muffled by layers of earth and stone, came the unmistakable sound of the horn's dark note—closer now.
Hungrier.
The corpse-king was coming.