The moment the acorn's light touched the chamber floor, the earth trembled. A great, shuddering groan echoed through the underground passages as if the world itself were waking from a long and troubled sleep. Seraphina barely had time to scoop the pulsating seed into her palm before the first stalactite shattered above them.
"Move!" Eldri yanked her sideways as a spear of rock impaled the space where they'd stood. Lysandra stirred in Seraphina's arms, her newly scarred fingers clutching weakly at her sister's tunic. The silver flowers were gone, but in their place—nothing. Just smooth, unblemished skin where her eyes should have been.
The sword's flame guttered as another tremor rocked the chamber. The murals were bleeding now, their pigments running like tears down the walls. Seraphina watched in horror as the image of the great tree cracked down the middle, its painted roots thrashing like dying serpents.
Eldri's breath came in sharp gasps. "She's waking."
"Who?" Seraphina clutched the acorn tighter, its light pulsing in time with her racing heart.
"The first. The one beneath." The hunter's golden eyes reflected the dying lantern light like a cat's. "Your ancestor."
A sound like splintering wood echoed through the tunnels—not from above, but from below. The stone beneath their feet grew warm, then hot, until the very rock began to glow a dull, angry red.
Lysandra's head lolled toward the sound. "She's...hungry," she whispered, her voice raw.
The acorn in Seraphina's hand flared, its light painting the chamber in stark relief. For a single, horrifying instant, she saw the truth of what lay beneath them—
Roots.
Not the thin, grasping things that had pursued them through the forest, but vast, primordial tendrils thicker than castle towers, coiling around one another in an endless, slumbering knot. And at the center...
A face.
A woman's face, carved from living wood, her mouth stretched wide in an eternal scream.
Then the vision was gone, and the chamber was collapsing around them.
Eldri grabbed Seraphina's arm. "There's a way out—"
"No." Seraphina wrenched free, her gaze fixed on the trembling walls. "Not without answers."
She dropped to her knees and pressed the glowing acorn to the heated stone.
The world split.
The First Queen's Memory
The acorn's light swallowed her whole.
One moment, Seraphina was in the crumbling chamber. The next, she stood in a sun-drenched grove, the air sweet with the scent of ripening fruit. The tree before her was young, its bark still smooth, its leaves a vibrant green.
At its base knelt a girl no older than sixteen, her blood-moon hair braided with wildflowers. She held a simple circlet of woven silver in her lap, her fingers tracing its surface with reverence.
"Anara."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. The girl—Anara—looked up, her dark eyes wide with devotion.
"I'm ready," she whispered.
The tree's branches shivered. "You understand the price?"
Anara's fingers tightened around the circlet. "To guard the gate. To keep the hunger sleeping." She lifted the silver band, its surface gleaming in the dappled light. "No matter the cost."
The vision fractured.
Now Anara stood before a different tree—older, its bark silvered with age. The circlet on her brow had changed, its simple weave now studded with thorns that bit into her skin. Blood trickled down her temples, but she didn't seem to notice. Her gaze was fixed on the man approaching through the grove, his robes the deep blue of the royal house.
"Brother," she breathed.
The man smiled. In his hands gleamed a dagger, its edge black with poison.
"You've kept your vigil long enough," he said.
The blade flashed.
Anara fell, her blood soaking into the roots.
And the tree—
The tree drank.
Awakening
Seraphina came back to herself screaming.
The acorn had burned itself into her palm, its outline seared into her flesh like a brand. Around her, the chamber was in ruins, the ceiling half-collapsed, the murals reduced to smears of colour.
Eldri crouched over Lysandra, her knife at the girl's throat. The hunter's golden eyes gleamed with reflected firelight.
"Now you see," she said softly. "The crown was never the prison. She was."
Somewhere deep below, the roots began to stir.
The acorn's brand pulsed in Seraphina's palm like a second heartbeat, each throb sending waves of heat up her arm. She could still smell the phantom scent of that sunlit grove, still see the betrayal in Anara's dark eyes as her brother's poisoned dagger found its mark. The memory clung to her like cobwebs, its truth more terrible than any horror the forest had yet shown her.
Eldri's blade never wavered at Lysandra's throat. A thin trickle of blood welled beneath the steel, stark against her sister's too-pale skin. The hunter's expression was unreadable in the flickering light, but her golden eyes burned with a fervor that bordered on madness.
"You felt it, didn't you?" Eldri whispered. "The moment her blood hit the roots. That was when the hunger woke. That was when the first Hollow Queen became what she is."
The ground trembled beneath them, a deep, resonant shudder that sent pebbles dancing across the fractured stone. From the tunnels beyond came the sound of splintering wood and crumbling earth - the great roots stirring after centuries of slumber.
Seraphina forced herself to breathe, to think. The acorn's heat in her palm was fading, its light dimming to a faint silver glow. She curled her fingers around it, feeling the shape of the truth within.
"It wasn't the tree that corrupted her," she said slowly. "It was the betrayal. The poison."
Eldri's lips peeled back from her teeth in something too grim to be called a smile. "Royal blood has power, little queen. Especially when spilled in treachery. That dagger didn't just kill Anara - it infected the roots."
Lysandra moaned, her blind face turning toward the sound of their voices. The scar on her chest - the mark left by the sword - pulsed faintly, its branching pattern glowing silver for the briefest instant.
Eldri's gaze dropped to the mark, her knife hand tightening. "She's still connected. Even now, the roots remember their own."
A great crash echoed through the tunnels, closer this time. The air grew thick with the scent of loam and something darker, something metallic and old.
Seraphina's fingers closed around the hilt of the silver sword. The eye in its pommel blinked lazily, its gaze knowing.
"Then we sever the connection," she said. "For good."
Eldri shook her head. "It's too late for that. The roots are waking. The hunger is rising." She pressed the blade closer to Lysandra's throat. "But there is another way."
The truth of it struck Seraphina like a physical blow. She saw the hunger in Eldri's golden eyes - not for power, not for revenge, but for purpose. The hunter wasn't just a guardian of these woods. She was an acolyte. A believer.
"You want her to wake," Seraphina breathed.
Eldri's smile was beatific. "To end the cycle, yes. To let the hunger feast one last time, until there are no more betrayals left to feed it." Her free hand gestured to the ruined murals. "Don't you see? This is why your sister was drawn here. Why the crown called to you. The roots remember royal blood, and they are starving."
Another tremor, stronger this time. Dust rained from the ceiling as the walls groaned in protest. Somewhere in the darkness, stone gave way to wood with a sound like snapping bones.
Lysandra's hand found Seraphina's wrist, her grip surprisingly strong. "The sword," she whispered. "Remember what it showed you."
The memory rose unbidden - the vision the blade had granted when first she touched it. Not just Anara's betrayal, but what came before. The circlet of woven silver. The vow spoken in sunlight.
To guard the gate.
To keep the hunger sleeping.
Seraphina's gaze dropped to the acorn in her palm. Not a seed, but a key. Not a prison, but a promise.
The ground heaved violently, throwing Eldri off balance. Her knife scored a deeper cut across Lysandra's throat, but the hunter barely had time to register her mistake before Seraphina was moving.
The silver sword flashed in the dying light, its flame roaring to life as it arced toward Eldri's throat.
The hunter dodged, but not fast enough.
The blade bit deep, and golden eyes widened in shock as Eldri's blood painted the crumbling stones.
"No more betrayals," Seraphina whispered.
Then the ceiling collapsed, and the world went dark.