The wind shifted.
Not like before—not the breath of the forest or the stirrings of tree spirits—but a colder, drier wind, born from something without root or soul. It blew in from the north, from the edge of Thornwood where stone met soil, where the trees no longer whispered and no memory dared bloom.
Kaelyn stood at the border, her hand pressed to the last living elm. Its bark flaked beneath her touch, dry as bone. This place—this stretch of forest—had once been vibrant, but now the land felt hollow, drained. Not by rot, but by absence.
"This is where it begins," she whispered.
Eran stepped beside her, cloak pulled tight against the unnatural chill. "Or where it was buried."
In the distance, beyond the ring of greyed roots, ruins rose—weathered stone spires barely clinging to form, swallowed by time but resisting reclamation by the forest. Unlike the Thorn Queen's palace, which had been overtaken by ivy and wind, this forgotten kingdom repelled life itself.
"It was never part of the forest," Kaelyn said. "It rejected the pulse."
"No," Eran murmured. "It severed it."
They moved forward together. The trees behind them did not follow.
The stone was colder still up close—etched with ancient symbols half-swallowed by moss. But the moss, Kaelyn realized, was dying. Turning to ash.
In the heart of the ruins lay a circle of stones, once a ceremonial site. Kaelyn stepped into the center, her pulse quickening. Something below the stone vibrated—faint, rhythmic, as though echoing her heartbeat.
A seed pulsed beneath.
Not of the First Root.
Something new.
Or old in a way that predated even the Thorn Queen's shadow.
She knelt, pressing her palm to the stone. The vibration became a voice—not spoken, but inhaled.
"You severed the curse. But you never cleansed the wound."
Kaelyn's breath caught.
Because she recognized the voice.
Not her own.
Not the Thorn Queen's.
But the girl—the First Offering, the buried vessel.
"No," Kaelyn whispered. "You're not just memory."
The voice inside her laughed—light and bitter.
"I am your beginning, Kaelyn. But not your end."
The ground beneath the stone cracked.
A green pulse erupted like lightning through the earth—slicing through root, reaching for sky.
And with it, the Second Pulse began to awaken.
The pulse rippled outward like a heartbeat made of lightning and sap. Trees miles away shivered. Moss shrank from the stone. And far beneath Kaelyn's feet, something vast stirred—something that had waited not in silence, but in containment.
Eran drew his blade of woven vine and bone. Its glow dimmed in the presence of this power.
"This isn't like before," he said. "This is older. Not forest... not shadow..."
Kaelyn didn't respond. She knelt over the cracked stone, fingers trembling as she reached toward the fracture. It wasn't just a crack in stone—it was a wound in the world.
A glow welled up from beneath, pale green turning slowly to silver, like moonlight through deep water.
And then—a bloom.
From the center of the ruin, a flower pushed through the fracture. But this was no blossom of Thornwood. Its petals were razor-thin, like pressed glass. Its scent was wrong—sweet, but sharp. Like something that remembered blood.
Kaelyn leaned closer.
Inside the center of the flower was a seed. Dark. Iridescent. Breathing.
She reached for it.
"Kaelyn," Eran warned, his voice taut. "Don't. That isn't ours."
"I know," she whispered. "But it knows me."
The moment her fingers brushed the seed, her vision turned.
Not in light—but in sound.
She heard a choir of voices, hundreds layered atop one another—crying, praying, screaming. All calling her name.
She saw flashes: Cities lost to the forest. A tower of antlered kings. The Thorn Queen weeping alone beneath a silver tree. Her own birth—cradled in a circle of roots, eyes glowing before her first breath.
And then she saw herself—older, clothed in bark and flame, standing atop a throne that grew from earth and bone alike.
The Root Crown.
It had begun to grow.
Not on her head.
Inside her.
Kaelyn stumbled back, gasping. The flower vanished instantly, folding in on itself like it had never been there. Only the stone remained, now whole again—but warm.
Eran caught her as she swayed.
"What did it show you?" he asked.
Kaelyn stared at her hands.
"Not what will happen," she whispered. "What wants to happen."
Eran's jaw tightened. "The Second Pulse isn't a warning. It's a path."
"Not just for me," Kaelyn said. "For anyone who carries the seed. For the rootborn."
Thunder rolled in the distance, but there was no storm—only power. Only something rising.
"We have to return," Kaelyn said. "Tell the council. If we don't act now…"
"They'll walk the path themselves," Eran finished. "And there won't be a forest left to bring them back."
They turned from the ruin and began the long walk back toward Thornwood. The land behind them closed up again—green regrowing over gray, as if to hide what now beat beneath.
But Kaelyn could still feel it.
The Second Pulse.
And this time, it didn't want a queen.
It wanted a god.