The air in the clearing clung thick and cloying to Seraphina's skin, heavy with the metallic tang of sap and something darker beneath—like wet earth after a slaughter. She forced herself to breathe through her mouth as she stared at the thing that had once been Lysandra. The warrior's familiar features twisted unnaturally atop a body woven from living roots, her limbs elongated and jointless, fingers ending in twitching tendrils that scraped against the ground like searching worms.
"You're... alive?" Seraphina's voice came out hoarser than she intended.
Lysandra's root-mouth twisted into something that might have been a smile. "Alive is such a finite word." Her voice was wrong—layered with whispers that weren't hers, as if the trees themselves spoke through her. "I am the Grove now. And the Grove is dying."
Behind them, Riven made a wounded sound. Seraphina turned to see him clutching his chest, the glowing mark pulsing erratically. Thin rivulets of gold seeped from his nostrils, his pupils blown wide with pain.
"You feel it, don't you?" Lysandra's root-body creaked as she stepped closer. "The corruption didn't leave you. It just went deeper."
Seraphina moved between them, her hand going to a dagger that was no longer there. "What did you do to him?"
The weeping fruit above them shuddered in unison, their amber tears falling faster. Lysandra tilted her head, the motion too fluid for something made of wood. "The seed was a gift. And a warning." She reached out a twig-fingered hand toward Riven. "He carries the last pure spark. The rot wants it. And it will dig through his bones to get it."
A wet cough wracked Riven's body. When he pulled his hand away from his mouth, his palm was smeared with blackened sap. "It's inside my head," he gasped. "Singing to me."
The ground trembled.
All around the clearing, the silver trees groaned as their roots pulled free from the soil. The golden fruit split open with wet, tearing sounds, revealing glistening pits within—each one pulsing like a heart.
Lysandra's form began unraveling, her root-body dissolving into thousands of silver threads that spread across the forest floor. "Run," she whispered as her face fragmented. "The Grove will try to keep you. The corruption will try to take you. And the Watcher in the roots..."
Her voice faded as the last of her dissolved into the earth.
Seraphina didn't wait to hear the rest. She grabbed Riven's arm, pulling him toward what looked like a path between the trees. His skin burned against hers, feverish and damp.
The moment their feet touched the path, the forest came alive around them.
Branches lashed like whips, snatching at their clothes. The weeping fruit rained sticky sap that burned where it touched skin. Beneath their feet, the roots twisted and knotted, trying to trap their ankles.
And beneath it all—a new sound.
A wet, rhythmic slithering.
Something was moving beneath the roots.
Something big.
Riven stumbled, his knees giving way. Seraphina barely caught him before he hit the ground. His breath came in ragged gasps, his eyes rolling back as the mark on his chest flared bright enough to cast their shadows against the trees.
"Stay with me," she hissed, dragging him forward.
From the darkness behind them came the sound of roots snapping.
Then laughter.
Deep and hollow and hungry.
The Watcher was coming.
The air in the clearing was thick enough to choke on—a cloying miasma of rotting sweetness and damp earth that clung to Seraphina's skin like a second layer. Each breath tasted metallic, the scent of sap and something darker beneath it—something that reminded her of the butcher's block back home when the heat made the blood turn. She pressed the back of her hand to her nose, but the stench permeated everything, seeping into her clothes, her hair, the sweat beading at her temples.
Before them, what remained of Lysandra stood motionless, her root-woven body creaking softly in the unnatural stillness. Moonlight filtered through the twisted canopy above, casting fractured silver patterns across her fragmented form—here a shoulder still recognizably human, there an arm that dissolved into a tangle of fibrous tendrils. Her face was the worst part—still Lysandra's, but stretched too thin over something that no longer remembered how to wear skin properly. When she smiled, amber sap welled at the corners of her mouth and dripped in slow, viscous strings to the forest floor.
"You shouldn't have come," Lysandra repeated, her voice layered with whispers that rustled like dead leaves. "But you were always stubborn, Seraphina. Even when we were children stealing apples from Old Man Harken's orchard." The memory shouldn't have hurt—just a scrap of normalcy from before the world went wrong—but it lodged in Seraphina's throat like a shard of glass.
Riven collapsed to his knees beside her with a wet gasp. Seraphina barely caught him by the shoulder before he face-planted into the loam. His skin burned beneath her fingers, feverish and damp, the swirling mark on his chest pulsing erratically like a dying firefly. Thin trails of gold-flecked black oozed from his nostrils, dripping onto the front of his ruined tunic. When he coughed, the sound was wet and wrong, his breath coming in ragged, whistling gasps.
"It's inside my head," he rasped, clawing at his temple with fingers that had begun to blacken at the tips again. "Singing to me in—in her voice. The First Hunger's voice. But it's not just her anymore. There's something else—" His words dissolved into a choked scream as the mark flared brighter, illuminating the hollows of his face in stark relief.
The ground trembled beneath them.
All around the clearing, the silver trees groaned as their roots pulled free from the soil with wet, tearing sounds. The golden fruit hanging from their branches convulsed, their skins splitting open like overripe melons to reveal glistening pits within—each one pulsing in time with Riven's labored breathing. The amber sap that wept from them no longer fell in droplets but in thick, continuous streams, pooling in the hollows between roots that now squirmed like living things.
Lysandra's root-body began to unravel, her form dissolving into thousands of silver threads that spread across the forest floor like spilled mercury. "Run," she whispered as her face fragmented, the last remnants of her human features melting away. "The Grove will try to keep you. The corruption will try to take you. And the Watcher in the roots—"
Her voice faded into nothingness as the last of her dissolved into the earth, leaving behind only the imprint of her hand in the loam—five perfect finger marks that quickly filled with black water.
Seraphina didn't hesitate. She hauled Riven upright, his weight nearly dragging her down as his legs buckled. His breath came in short, pained bursts against her neck, his fingers digging into her arm hard enough to bruise. "I can't—" he gasped. "It's pulling me apart—"
"Then we run faster," she snarled, dragging him toward what looked like a path between the trees.
The moment their feet touched the narrow trail, the forest erupted around them.
Branches lashed like whips, snatching at their clothes and hair. One caught Seraphina across the cheek, leaving a stinging welt that immediately began to weep thin trails of blood. The weeping fruit rained sticky sap that burned where it touched exposed skin, raising angry red blisters on the back of her hands. Beneath their feet, the roots twisted and knotted, rising up to snag their ankles with bony fingers.
And beneath it all—a new sound.
A wet, rhythmic slithering, like something massive dragging itself through the undergrowth.
Something was moving beneath the roots.
Something that breathed in ragged, whistling gasps.
Riven stumbled again, his knees giving way completely this time. Seraphina barely caught him before he hit the ground, his body convulsing violently in her arms. His eyes rolled back, showing only the whites, his lips peeling away from teeth that had begun to darken at the gums. The mark on his chest flared bright enough to cast their shadows against the trees in grotesque, elongated shapes.
"Stay with me," she hissed, dragging him forward with strength she didn't know she had. His boots left twin trails in the loam, filling quickly with that same inky water that had swallowed Lysandra's handprint.
From the darkness behind them came the sound of roots snapping—not the small, fibrous pops of twigs breaking, but the deep, wet cracks of something massive forcing its way through.
Then laughter.
Deep and hollow and hungry, reverberating through the ground itself.
The Watcher was coming.
And from the way Riven's head snapped up at the sound, his now-black eyes wide with horrified recognition, Seraphina knew one terrible truth:
It knew his name.