The Grove did not rest.
Even as color seeped back into bark and blood, as shattered glyphs reformed on the wings of new birds, the weight of what had survived pressed down with unbearable grace.
Memory, now whole, now fractured again, was not static. It grew like ivy—wild, unruly, beautiful, dangerous.
And the Erasers, once blank storms of subtraction, now knelt at the edges of the Grove—changed, but unfinished. Their bodies shimmered faintly with inked threads, but behind their new eyes stirred doubt: not of violence, but of purpose.
The Keeper watched them. She had become a vessel now—full not of ink or myth, but of ache. The ache of having remembered too much.
---
The Shiver in the Grove
Then the Grove trembled—not with warning, but recognition.
A fissure opened beneath the roots, thin as a breath held too long. From within came not a form, but a scent: old parchment soaked in brine, iron, and dust. The Grove recoiled—not in fear, but in shame.
