Four Years Ago – Part IV
The under-veins reeked of wet stone and iron.
Hatim's boots slipped on the slick rock as he and Lyra dragged Granny Maldri through the tunnels. Ash clung to her skin like a second shadow, but the violet light beneath it was worse—a sickly shimmer crawling through her veins, pulsing irregularly. Unbinding. The word coiled in Hatim's gut like a parasite.
Lyra's braid lashed against her back as she kicked aside a tangle of wyrmgrass. "Faster," she hissed, though they both knew speed wouldn't save her. The Rootpaths weren't meant for haste. They were a graveyard of whispers, the walls etched with glyphs from healers and grave-runners who'd carried their own dying through these arteries.
Maldri's breath hitched. A wet, rattling sound. The lamp at her belt guttered, its glow barely pushing back the dark. Shadows leapt across the carvings—warnings in dead tongues, pleas to gods who'd stopped listening.
Then the Bone-Reed arch. The curtain of charms clattered like teeth as they burst through.
The hearth was cold.
Hatim lowered Maldri onto the moss-lined cot. Her fingers twitched, her lips moving soundlessly. Lyra was already at the shelves, scattering jars, her voice fraying. "Moonpetal—thornspike—where's the Goldbane?!"
Hatim pressed a hand to Maldri's forehead. Her skin was clammy, her eyes glassy. The violet shimmer had spread to her temples.
"It's not sickness," he said.
Lyra froze.
The silence was thicker than the dark outside.
Unbinding didn't kill. It unmade. It peeled Akar from bone like stripping bark from a living tree. No poultice could mend it. No chant could soothe it. Only one thing might—whispered about in the Sinks like a fairy tale.
"She told me," Hatim said. "Pure Akar. From the Crowns."
Lyra turned. A laugh tore from her, sharp as broken glass. "You think they'll spare a drop for her? We're gutter-born, Hatim. The Crowns would sooner burn the Sinks than look at us."
Maldri coughed. A trickle of blackened sap leaked from her lips.
Hatim stood.
The cleaver hung above the dead hearth. Shrine-metal, forged in volcanic breath, its edge honed by Maldri's own hands. Glyphs coiled down its length—meant for healing, hardened by war.
His fingers closed around the hilt. The weight was familiar. Right.
"Then I'll make them see me."
Lyra's breath hitched. "The forbiddenwoods? You'll die before you even reach the guild outposts."
"Nobles hunt there sometimes," he said, jaw tight. "If I bring back something rare—a Frostfang pelt, a Veinbloom—maybe one of them will notice. Maybe they'll ask why a Sink-rat knows how to track."
Her face paled. "You're not a hunter. You're a healer."
Hatim looked down at Maldri. Her chest barely rose.
"She taught me to mend broken things," he whispered. "Not to watch them shatter."
The strap across his chest tightened with a creak of leather. He turned toward the door.
Lyra's voice chased him, thin as a breaking thread.
"When you come back… don't be a ghost."
Hatim paused.
"I won't."
The under-vein fog swallowed him whole. Behind him, the Sinks sealed shut like a jaw snapping closed.