The throne's ashes still glowed in the dark when Rafi and the braid girl stumbled from the grove. Behind them, Mere's final scream lingered in the hush like a splinter that wouldn't come out. But the forest did not quiet.
It sang.
Not with words, but with a low, droning hum that oozed from the roots underfoot, from the leaves overhead, from the places inside their bones that still belonged to the hush. Rafi stopped beneath a dead oak, pressing a palm to its bark. The vibration pulsed up his arm, into his heart.
Come home.
No hunger here.
No pain.
He pulled his hand away as if burned. The braid girl leaned against the trunk beside him, eyes closed, humming along in a voice older than her throat.
"Don't listen," Rafi rasped. He shook her shoulder. Her eyes fluttered open — pupils dilated, lips parted in a peaceful smile that terrified him more than Mere's roots ever had.
"It's beautiful, Rafi," she whispered. Her voice was not just hers — it carried the hush's lullaby like a secret tide. "It promises we can rest. No running. No memories. No more burning."
He shook his head. "No. No! It lies — it always lies." He backed away, but the hum crawled after him. His mother's voice flickered at the edge of hearing: Come to bed, Rafi. Let the dark hold you.
He slammed his fists against his skull. Sparks danced behind his eyes — pain, blessed pain. Real. Human.
The braid girl reached for him, roots writhing at her fingertips. "Stay. Listen. Be quiet inside forever."
"NO!" He grabbed her wrists. He could feel the hush throbbing in her veins — tiny threads of green under her skin, pulsing in time with the forest's song.
Somewhere deep in the trees, other voices joined: the lost children, the old guardians, even Mere's lingering echo. A choir stitched together by the hush's roots.
Rafi's knees buckled. The braid girl fell with him, her forehead pressed to his. The hum swelled around them, a cradle of dirt and leaf and bone.
He forced a word through his teeth: "Fight."
She whimpered. Her braid writhed, twigs snapping free to burrow into the soil. He kissed her forehead, the way his mother used to kiss him before the hush stole her warmth.
"Remember the fire," he whispered against her skin. "Remember it hurt. Remember it freed us."
Her eyes snapped wide. Tears cut tracks through the moss blooming on her cheeks. For a heartbeat the hum faltered — the hush recoiled, hissed.
"Rafi…" she gasped. Roots slithered out of her mouth, falling limp. She grabbed his shoulders. Together they crawled backward from the dead oak, dragging themselves into a patch of moonlight where the hum thinned, where the hush's cradle lost its grip.
He held her there until the dawn cracked pale green through the canopy. The song still shivered through the trees, but softer now — no longer an order, just a memory of a lullaby.
They lay side by side, breathing ragged but free.
The hush had sung them to sleep so many times before. But this time, they'd sung back.