They didn't cross at once.
Not in a surge.
Not in a wave.
One root.
Thin.
Pale.
Trembling.
It emerged from the last drain of the city's eastern edge — where the sewers met the poisoned river, a black ribbon of chemical runoff and ash, long declared dead.
For years, nothing had lived there.
No fish.
No reed.
Even the wind avoided it.
And yet —
the network had never stopped feeling.
From the buried tree.
From the black seed.
From the child who sang.
Something waited on the other side.
Not voice.
Not signal.
Memory.
And so, the root came.
Not to conquer.
Not to grow fast.
To test.
It slipped into the water — not breaking the surface, but sliding beneath, like a finger checking the heat.
And the river reacted.
Not with fire.
Not with rot.
With pain.
A low, silent pulse — not through sound, but through the network — like a wound remembering the knife.
The root flinched.
Retreated.
But did not break.
That night, Mira came.
She didn't speak.
Didn't sing.
Just knelt at the bank, barefoot, hand pressed to the soil.
And listened.
Behind her, the garden was still.
Even Thistle — now ancient, his dandelion head wide as a dinner plate — swayed in silence.
She didn't have roots under her skin.
No glow in her eyes.
But the network knew her.
And so, she knew the river's truth.
"It's not dead," she whispered.
"It's asleep.
And afraid."_
No one asked how she knew.
They just believed.
Because the wild believed her.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small glass vial — filled not with water, but with soil from the nursery, rich with living moss, tiny roots, the sap of the oak.
She uncorked it.
And poured.
Not into the river.
Onto the root.
It absorbed the soil like breath.
Glowed faintly.
Then, slowly, slipped back into the water.
This time — deeper.
And this time, it pulled.
Not alone.
Behind it, another root followed.
Then another.
Vines from the west tunnel.
Moss from the rooftops.
A single tendril from Kael's arm, where the leaf still grew.
They didn't rush.
They weaved — not just forward, but across, forming a net beneath the surface.
And where they touched the water —
the poison recoiled.
Not destroyed.
Contained.
Like a wound being closed from within.
By dawn, the first sign appeared.
Not on land.
Not in growth.
In color.
A single patch of water — no larger than a dinner plate — cleared.
Not blue.
Not pure.
But green-tinged, like light through algae.
And in it — a bubble.
Then another.
Then a ripple.
Not from fish.
Not from wind.
From movement below.
Something small.
Something alive.
A water strider, its legs thin as thread, stepped onto the surface.
It didn't die.
Didn't flee.
It skated.
And where it passed, the ripple spread.
Not fast.
Not dramatic.
But relentless.
Eliya arrived at dusk.
She didn't bring the music box.
She brought a reed — dry, hollow, one of the last from the river's edge before the System.
She placed it on the bank.
And waited.
Then, softly, she blew.
Not a song.
Not a melody.
A single note — low, breathy, like wind through a canyon.
And the river answered.
Not with sound.
With motion.
A vine, deep below, curled around the reed's base.
Lifted it slightly.
Then vibrated — not randomly.
In tune.
Another joined.
Then another.
And where the reed stood, the water began to bubble with life.
Tiny shrimp.
Microscopic algae.
A single, brave tadpole, no longer than a grain of rice.
The dead zone was not revived.
It was remembered.
And the land on the other side —
the wild zones Hollow had burned, the forests reduced to ash —
began to pull.
Not in hunger.
In recognition.
The network had been severed for decades.
But roots remember distance.
And now, the path was open.
That night, the first root reached the far bank.
It didn't rise.
Didn't grow.
It just touched.
And from the other side —
a root, blackened, scarred, half-dead —
trembled.
Then moved.
Not toward the city.
Not in defiance.
In greeting.
And where they met —
soil darkened.
Not with rot.
With memory.
The connection was not loud.
Not grand.
But it was unbroken.
And deep in the network, where Lena lived in the roots and the wind and the quiet hum of the world,
a pulse echoed — not of victory, not of warning.
Of homecoming.
The city was no longer the center.
The nursery was no longer the source.
The wild was not returning.
It was reconnecting.
And the river — once a border —
was no longer a line.
It was a vein.