Beneath the Hollow Tree, Kaelyn descended.
The roots formed a spiral staircase of gnarled wood and stone, slick with moisture and age. With each step, the air thickened, fragrant with memory and the musk of sleeping earth. The child's voice still echoed in her mind—not with fear, but with faith.
You made me.
What had she awoken? What had she become?
Eran followed silently, blades of vine-light curled around his fingers. He hadn't spoken since the Mirror Pool. He didn't need to. The bond between them had deepened, forged through shared vision and old scars.
"I remember this place," Kaelyn murmured as her hand traced the wall. "When I broke the Thorn Queen's curse… I thought I reached the bottom."
"You did," Eran said grimly. "Of her."
The stairs opened into a cavern pulsing with ambient light. Luminous fungi clung to ancient bark, and veins of silver root stretched along the floor like a map of forgotten lives.
At the center stood a well. Not of water—but of shadow. A pit so deep its depths devoured sound.
Kaelyn approached, and the whispering began.
You opened the bloom. You fed the seed. Now reap the root.
She did not flinch. "I want to see."
The shadows obeyed.
From the pit rose images—twisting memories not her own. A city of stone swallowed by vines. People kneeling in worship to a being with no face, only a crown of thorns that bloomed into fire. Screams. Silence. A forest erupting from blood-soaked ground.
And then—a girl. Young, frightened. Her wrists marked with the same scar Kaelyn bore now.
"She was the first," Kaelyn whispered. "The first rootborn."
"No," Eran corrected. "She was the first offering."
The vision warped. The girl was lifted by the faceless entity, buried in the soil as she screamed. The forest grew from her.
"She became the First Root," Kaelyn breathed, horror dawning like cold light. "She wasn't born with magic. She was the magic."
Eran stepped closer to the pit, his voice low. "The Thorn Queen tried to bend the power. You broke the curse and seeded something new. But the First Root… it remembers what it was promised."
Kaelyn turned to him. "What?"
"A body. A kingdom. Worship. It doesn't care about vengeance anymore. It wants to become."
She stared into the well, and for a moment, saw her own reflection in its surface. But it wasn't her.
It was the girl—older now, her eyes hollow and green, her lips moving as if caught mid-prayer. And behind her, shapes moved in the dark: children and elders, villagers and spirits—every rootborn touched by Kaelyn's magic.
The First Root wasn't coming back alone.
It was reincarnating through them.
"We have to sever the line," she said.
Eran looked at her sharply. "That would mean—"
"I know." Her voice was quiet. "I'd have to cut it from me. From all of them."
They ascended in silence.
By dawn, the Rootborn Council had gathered again, this time beneath the canopy of the Verdant Spire—a tree older than history, whose leaves were rumored to hear lies.
Kaelyn stood before them, the scar on her wrist glowing faintly, as if remembering the pit's hunger.
"The First Root is not just awakening," she said. "It's multiplying. It's reincarnating through the people. Through the land."
The child with the sprout in his ear sat quietly beside the elder rootkin. His eyes glowed like budding moss.
"We were so desperate for peace, we didn't see what we let grow," Kaelyn continued. "And now it's inside us. All of us."
Murmurs rippled through the council.
"So what do we do?" asked the seer from the southern grove. "Burn it out?"
"No," Kaelyn said. "We guide it."
Silence.
Eran narrowed his eyes. "You want to teach it?"
"If we try to destroy it, we'll repeat the Thorn Queen's mistakes," Kaelyn said. "Control by force will only feed its hunger. But if I can reach it—if I can speak with the girl I saw in the pit…"
"You think she still exists?" Eran asked.
Kaelyn looked down at the child again. "She's in all of them. Pieces scattered. Fractured. If I can gather the fragments…"
"You could remake her," the elder rootkin finished quietly.
"Or she could remake you," another warned.
Kaelyn met their gaze. "Then let her try."
That night, Kaelyn returned to the Mirror Pool alone. She knelt beside the still water, holding a small shard of silver bark taken from the Hollow Tree's core. It pulsed with both her magic and the First Root's echo.
She pressed it to her chest.
"Come," she whispered.
The air rippled.
The pool darkened.
And from the reflection stepped the girl—not a vision, but a projection of Kaelyn's own blood and the forest's memory.
"You shouldn't have called me," the girl said. Her voice echoed with a hundred whispers. "I was growing so quietly."
Kaelyn studied her. "You were screaming through every vine in Thornwood."
The girl smiled sadly. "I'm not your enemy. I'm what comes next. The forest doesn't want queens anymore. It wants gods."
Kaelyn stood. "Then it will be disappointed."
The girl cocked her head. "Will it? You've already become more than mortal. You channel old magic. You command spirits. You've fed me."
Kaelyn stepped forward. "I won't be your vessel."
"You already are," the girl whispered.
And then she vanished.
But the shard in Kaelyn's hand pulsed once—then cracked.
The forest groaned.
Not in pain.
In birth.
Kaelyn rose, heart pounding.
The First Root wasn't coming anymore.
It had begun.