They landed hard.
Kael hit the ground shoulder-first, air driven from his lungs as he rolled into darkness. The world spun. His ears rang. Somewhere nearby, Eris coughed violently, the sound raw and wet.
Dripping roots hung above them like a rotten ceiling, twitching as if tasting the air. The light from the ruptured node was gone—sealed behind the collapse. In its place was black stone slick with moisture and veins of faintly pulsing silver that spidered across the walls like a second skin.
Kael pushed himself upright, pain spiking through his chest where Mercy had slammed into his ribs. The sword lay beside him, cracked but intact, its fractured silver lines dull. Quiet.
"Eris?"
A grunt answered him.
She was slumped against the far wall, covered in dust and blood. Her hair stuck to her face in damp strands, and her lips were pale, but her eyes—fierce, defiant—met his when he staggered to her side.
"You alive?" he asked.
"Barely," she rasped. "But I've been worse."
He helped her sit up, checking her for broken bones. Her left arm was badly bruised, maybe fractured, and the edge of her brand had begun to blacken.
The rot was accelerating.
Kael clenched his jaw. "We have to move."
"Where to?" she asked, wincing as she shifted. "We're buried."
He looked around. The space they'd fallen into wasn't just a chasm—it was a chamber. Cracked tiles hinted at an ancient foundation beneath the lab. Faint carvings peeked through the dust. A hollowed statue, headless, arm outstretched. Half-erased glyphs etched into the floor.
Not Syndicate. Not Order.
Older.
Mercy pulsed faintly in his hand. A whisper stirred in the back of his mind—not a voice, exactly, but a sense.
Here. This is where the Scythe was first drawn.
Kael shivered.
A narrow gap gaped in one wall, half-choked with root. The silver veins here pulsed in time with Mercy's breathless rhythm.
"We're not buried," he said. "We're somewhere else. Somewhere it wanted us to go."
Eris followed his gaze. "You think the Garden planned this?"
Kael shook his head. "Not the Garden. Mercy."
She raised an eyebrow. "We're trusting a sword now?"
He didn't answer. Just started walking.
The tunnel beyond the gap was narrow, wet, and sharp with the smell of sulfur and old blood. They moved in silence, Kael leading, Mercy's dull hum growing slowly louder with every step. The silver roots thinned as they walked, replaced by black stone veined with something like obsidian. The air grew cooler.
Then they stepped into a circular chamber.
It was vast—larger than the lab, larger than the chapel. A domed ceiling rose above them, cracked and sagging, but intact. And in the center of the room stood a pedestal of bone-white stone, split down the middle.
Resting in its center was a sword.
Not Mercy.
This blade was longer, thinner, shaped like a fang pulled from some titanic beast. It was pitch black, and instead of silver veins, it pulsed with deep red light, slow and rhythmic, like a buried heartbeat.
Kael approached slowly, Mercy trembling in his grip.
"I've seen drawings of this," Eris murmured behind him. "The Rootless have stories—old ones. About a blade buried in the deep, cursed and sealed. They say the Garden tried to forget it."
Kael's voice was a whisper. "This is where it began."
"Where what began?"
He stared at the sword on the pedestal.
"The First Scythe."
The moment he said it, the room reacted.
The walls vibrated. Dust poured from the ceiling. Roots recoiled from the chamber like they were being burned. The black sword's light flared.
A presence stirred. Cold. Massive. Ancient.
Kael dropped to one knee as a voice filled the chamber—not Mercy's, not the Hollow King's. Older than both.
"Scythe-bearer. Garden-breaker. You come unbound."
Eris grabbed Kael's arm, dagger drawn, eyes wide. "What now?"
He barely heard her.
The voice wasn't in his ears. It was in his blood.
"One of root. One of blade. One of breath."
"Who are you?" Kael asked aloud, his voice cracking.
"I am the Root That Remembered. The Scar Beneath the Seed. The cost of your birthright."
Kael's head throbbed. Visions swam behind his eyes.
The first sword, forged in fire and sealed in root. A warrior crowned in ash. A world before Solarae, before the Syndicate, drowning in its own growth.
A choice.
"You created Mercy," Kael whispered.
"I unmade it. Mercy was the blade that broke me. Now you wield what remains."
He swayed on his feet. The voice wasn't cruel. It was tired.
"Then tell me how to stop it. The Garden. The King. My brother."
"Would you kill him, child of broken oaths? Would you end the seed to save the stem?"
Kael hesitated.
Mercy's hum grew louder, agitated.
"You hesitate. As did I. As did he."
A pulse of red surged through the black sword.
"Then take the Scourge. And finish what I could not."
The pedestal cracked open, and the blade rose into the air.
Kael took a step back.
"No."
The voice paused. "No?"
"I don't need another blade." His words came slowly, each one heavier than the last. "I need to end this. Not become part of it."
Mercy flared in his grip, heat searing his palm.
The chamber pulsed. Then—stillness.
The black sword stilled. The roots stopped retreating.
Kael turned away from the pedestal.
Eris gave him a long look. "You sure?"
"No. But… it felt right. Like it's what someone should've said a long time ago."
"Yeah, well. If it tries to kill us later, I'm blaming you."
They left the chamber. The roots didn't follow.
It took hours to find another exit.
They climbed through cracks and narrow shafts, following a draft that hinted at the surface. By the time they emerged into pale daylight, the sky above Solarae was stained with smoke.
A Syndicate skiff flew low overhead, its hull trailing vines.
Kael and Eris ducked into the ruins of a collapsed outpost, watching it pass.
"They're spreading," Eris murmured.
Kael nodded. "Seth's not just a vessel anymore. He's leading them."
"Then we need to cut the root."
"Which means Helix Gamma."
"Veyra won't wait long."
Kael didn't respond. His gaze was fixed on the sky.
A shape circled high above—too distant to identify. Not a bird. Not a skiff.
But watching.
He looked down at Mercy, the blade still cracked, still humming.
"You said no to another sword," Eris said. "But you're still holding the first."
Kael nodded.
"Because I think I finally understand what it is."
She waited.
"It's not a weapon. It's a witness."
There was silence between them for a moment.
"Sounds poetic," she muttered. "Let's hope it's useful too."
Kael slid the blade into its sheath.
"I'm the one who decides what gets remembered."
They returned to the Rootless camp under cover of night.
Veyra was waiting by the watchtower steps, arms crossed.
"You lived," he said, mildly surprised.
"Just barely," Eris muttered, collapsing onto a nearby crate.
Kael remained standing. "Helix Gamma. When do we move?"
Veyra studied him. "You're different."
"Everything is."
"Good." He gestured to the map. "We leave in two days. And Kael..."
Kael turned.
"Don't hesitate again."
Kael's grip on Mercy tightened.
"I won't."