The boy's shadow stretched long across the damp earth as he trailed behind Moyan like a persistent ghost. Three days had passed since they'd cleansed Fen of the corruption, and still the child followed him everywhere - to the herb gardens, the healing huts, even the privy if Moyan didn't lock the door fast enough.
"Are you making the yucky tea again?" Fen's nose wrinkled as Moyan crushed bitterwort leaves between his fingers, releasing their acrid scent.
Moyan exhaled through his teeth. "It's not tea. It's medicine."
"For Old Man Bao's cough?"
"Yes."
"Will it make him better?"
Moyan paused, the golden tracery along his forearm pulsing faintly as he ground the herbs. "It'll help."
Fen leaned in closer, his breath warm against Moyan's wrist. "Your glowy parts get brighter when you do that."
A knife thunked into the wooden post beside them.
"Kid's got you figured out, tree man." Jian Luo sauntered over, retrieving his blade with a practiced twist. His amber eyes caught the late afternoon light, still too bright to be natural, though the darkness that had once ringed them had faded.
Moyan shot him a glare. "Shouldn't you be helping Haiyu scout the northern fields?"
Jian Luo flipped the knife lazily. "Finished early. Found something you'll want to see." His casual tone didn't match the tension in his shoulders.
Fen perked up immediately. "Is it treasure? Bandits? A monster?"
"Better." Jian Luo's smile showed too many teeth. "A mystery."
---
The depression behind the creek bend looked innocent enough - a shallow dip in the land where rainwater collected before spilling into the main stream. But the water here didn't ripple naturally. It moved in sluggish pulses, as if something beneath the surface was breathing.
Moyan knelt, pressing his palm to the damp soil. The golden roots beneath his skin flared instantly, resonating with the corruption before he even made contact.
"Careful," Haiyu signed from her perch on a nearby rock. Her vine-twined wrist lay across her knee, the emerald tendrils twitching in agitation. "Different from before."
Fen squirmed past Jian Luo's restraining arm. "Is it more icky roots?"
Moyan didn't answer. The vision hit him like a blow to the temple:
_A silver seed, not buried but planted with care_
_Hands - a woman's hands - pressing it into sacred soil_
_A whisper: "Forgive me"_
He jerked back, breaking contact. The afterimage burned behind his eyes - Nyxara's face, but not as the legends described. No mad prophetess, no power-hungry schemer. Just a woman with grief carved into every line of her expression.
Jian Luo's claws pricked his shoulder. "You alright?"
Moyan blinked away the vision. "There's something deeper here. Not just corruption... a memory. A strong one."
As if summoned by his words, the black tendrils erupted from the water. Not the mindless, thrashing things they'd encountered before, but something far more deliberate. The roots wove together with terrifying precision, forming a crude humanoid shape that stood waist-deep in the creek.
Fen gasped. "It's got a face!"
And it did - a hollow approximation of one, the roots forming sunken eye sockets, a gaping mouth that stretched too wide. When it turned toward Fen, the boy's breath hitched.
"That's the bad voice," he whispered. "The one in my dreams."
Liang's spear flew before anyone could react, piercing the figure's chest with a wet thunk. The creature barely flinched. The roots around the spear shaft pulsed, then absorbed the weapon entirely, swallowing it into the mass of writhing tendrils.
Jian Luo shoved Fen behind him. "New plan. We run."
The figure's mouth stretched wider. A sound emerged - not speech, but the creaking groan of ancient trees bending in a storm. It reverberated through Moyan's bones, carrying with it fragments of meaning:
_Return_
_Remember_
_Atone_
Haiyu's vines lashed out, creating a barrier between the creature and Fen. "Moyan!" Her hands shaped the name sharply. "It wants the boy!"
Moyan plunged his hands into the creek bed, ignoring the burn of corrupted roots against his skin. The golden light surged from his chest down his arms, illuminating the water with an eerie glow. This time, he didn't fight the vision:
_A grove of ancient trees, their canopies lost in mist_
_Nyxara kneeling before the largest, her dagger flashing silver_
_Not an attack - a sacrifice_
_Blood dripping onto roots, the tree shuddering in protest_
_"Take me instead," she begged_
_The roots closing around her wrists like manacles_
The creature before them shuddered, its form wavering. The black tendrils lightened at the tips, turning gray where Moyan's light touched them.
Fen whimpered. "It hurts..."
Moyan gritted his teeth, pushing deeper. The vision shifted:
_The first Wardens arriving, their silver seeds gleaming_
_Nyxara screaming as they carved into the great tree_
_"You were supposed to protect it!"_
_Her hands, now root-twined, reaching for something - someone - just out of frame_
A name surfaced through the pain:
"Kainan."
The creature froze.
For a heartbeat, the corruption cleared enough to reveal what lay beneath - not a monster, but the echo of a woman trapped between moments. Her root-twined hands reached toward Moyan, not in attack, but supplication.
Then the vision shattered.
The creek exploded in a shower of black water and broken roots. Moyan stumbled back, his arms burning where the corruption had touched him. The creature was gone, the water running clear once more. Only Liang's spear remained, washed clean and lodged in the opposite bank.
Fen was the first to break the silence. "Did we win?"
Jian Luo flexed his claws, watching the water warily. "Not sure what that was, but I don't think winning comes into it."
Haiyu helped Moyan to his feet, her vines probing his injuries. "Nyxara?" she signed.
Moyan nodded, still tasting blood in his mouth. "She wasn't what we thought. None of them were."
Liang retrieved his spear with shaking hands. "What in the Gardener's name does that mean?"
It was Fen who answered, his voice small but certain: "It means the story's wrong."
As the sun dipped below the trees, casting long shadows across the cleansed creek, Moyan felt the weight of those words settle in his bones. The roots in his chest hummed with uneasy knowledge. Their work in Green Hollow had been the beginning, not the end.
And somewhere, buried deeper than any corruption, the truth of Nyxara's sacrifice waited to be unearthed.