The jungle greeted them not with chirping birds or whispering leaves.
It greeted them with silence.
An unnatural silence.
The sun filtered weakly through thick green canopy overhead, but the light felt... wrong. Twisted. As though it had traveled too far, crossed too many folds of space and time, and arrived not as warmth but as a suggestion of memory.
Aelira's blade was already drawn.
"There's something alive here," she said.
Kaelen crouched at the edge of the foliage, placing his palm to the moss-covered ground. The threads pulsed faintly beneath his fingers. This place wasn't just overgrown—it was woven.
"This forest is a construct," he muttered. "Something… stitched it."
Aelira narrowed her eyes. "You mean someone?"
"No. I mean it—the Weave. It's self-repairing. Alive. Dreaming."
She didn't ask what that meant. Not anymore.
They stepped into the foliage, and the trees closed behind them like a mouth.
Within the Green Silence
The jungle was denser than any natural growth Kaelen had encountered. Vines hung like nooses. Flowers bled dark sap. Trees bent in odd spirals, their bark covered in glyphs too ancient to read.
But they weren't alone.
Shapes watched from the shadows—slim humanoid figures with glimmering eyes and semi-transparent skin, like ghosts caught in the act of remembering themselves.
"Echo-fragments," Kaelen whispered.
"Are they dangerous?"
"Yes. But not to us."
"Why?"
"Because they know me."
Aelira glanced at him. "From what?"
Kaelen didn't answer. The truth felt too close. The jungle murmured around them, as if the plants themselves remembered another version of him—another time, another fall.
He began following the Weave instinctually, his Rift eye glowing brighter with each step.
Hours Later – The Central Grove
They arrived at a clearing where the trees bent outward in a perfect circle. At the center stood an altar—half-devoured by vines, blood-red in hue. It pulsed faintly, like a wounded heart.
Above it floated the third thread.
Not gold. Not silver.
But black.
Kaelen's breath caught.
This wasn't a ruin.
This was a grave.
Before he could step forward, something moved.
A woman.
Or what had once been one.
She was tall, draped in robes made of petals and rot, her eyes pitch black, her voice like rust scraping silk.
"You wear a face the Garden remembers," she said.
Kaelen didn't move. "You are its guardian?"
"No. I am its apology."
The ground split.
Vines surged upward, shaped like limbs, like screaming mouths, like memory turned hostile.
Aelira cursed, raising her blade.
Kaelen raised a hand.
"Don't."
He stepped forward, eyes never leaving the woman.
"I'm not here to hurt your Garden."
"You already did. Long ago."
He frowned.
She extended a hand.
"Do you remember her? The one who gave herself to grow this?"
He shook his head. "No."
The woman stepped aside, revealing a mural behind the altar—carved into the bark of a tree taller than a tower.
The image showed Kaelen—or a past version—kneeling before the altar, holding a woman in his arms as vines grew from her chest. Her eyes were closed. Peaceful. Sacrificed.
Aelira stared in horror. "You killed her."
"No," Kaelen whispered. "I planted her."
Trial of the Garden
The Guardian raised her arms.
"You will face her. Not as a memory. But as she is now."
The altar pulsed.
From it rose a form—female, regal, rotting and radiant. Vines poured from her spine. Her eyes glowed faintly.
"Kaelen," she said softly.
He didn't recognize her.
But his heart clenched.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"I was the first," she said. "The first to believe in your dream. The first to die for it."
The Garden howled.
Battle Beneath the Dying Canopy
She moved with impossible grace.
Every step unleashed waves of decaying growth—vines that moved like serpents, flowers that screamed, pollen that burned the lungs.
Kaelen responded not with brute force, but with memory.
He pulled on the pattern beneath the jungle.
He'd once built this place.
He remembered how.
With every gesture, he canceled out a portion of her attack—reversing vines into roots, unwinding pollen into seed.
"You are not whole," she hissed. "You left me to rot."
Kaelen bled from the side. "I was broken."
"You were selfish!"
She struck him, flinging him back against a tree.
Aelira moved to defend him—but he raised a hand again.
"No."
This wasn't her fight.
He staggered to his feet, one hand over his heart.
"You were the first," he whispered. "That much… I see now."
He stepped forward and lowered his arms.
"No more fighting."
The Garden paused.
She hesitated.
"Even now?" she asked. "Even if I take you with me?"
Kaelen closed the distance. "Then take me. But not with rage. With remembrance."
He stepped into her arms.
She embraced him.
And then unraveled into ash.
Aftermath
The altar dimmed.
The black thread floated downward, now warm in color—midnight blue, streaked with violet.
Kaelen took it, feeling a third pattern lock into place within him.
The Garden stilled.
The vines withdrew.
The Guardian bowed.
"She forgives you. The Garden remembers."
Then she vanished into petals.
Kaelen turned away.
He didn't speak for a long while.
Aelira walked beside him, silent.
But before they left the clearing, she took his hand.
"You remember her now?"
"Enough to hurt."
"Good."
And they stepped into the dusk.