The figure stepped forward, sunlight glinting off the silver veins threading through what remained of its flesh. Not the corpse-king—this form was leaner, its movements fluid where his had been stiff with decay. As it emerged fully from the shadows, Seraphina's breath caught.
Eldri's golden eyes stared back at her from a face half-reclaimed by the roots.
"You," Seraphina breathed, her fingers tightening around the acorn. The living wood pulsed in response, its light flaring against her palm.
The thing wearing Eldri's face smiled, its lips splitting further than human flesh should allow. "Not quite." Its voice was layered—Eldri's husky tones undercut by something older, hungrier. "But she made such an...agreeable vessel."
Lysandra's sword hummed to life, its wooden blade glowing with inner fire. "The horn," she murmured. "It was never just a warning."
The Herald's smile widened. "It was an invitation."
The ground between them erupted.
Great roots burst upward, but these were blackened, their surfaces glistening with the same viscous corruption that had once tainted the tree. They moved with predatory grace, encircling the Herald like loyal hounds. Where they touched the newly cleansed earth, tiny tendrils of darkness spread outward, poisoning the moss and young shoots in their wake.
Seraphina barely had time to react before the first root struck. She dodged left, the acorn's light flaring as a barbed tendril grazed her shoulder. The contact burned—not with heat, but with a cold so intense it seared.
Lysandra moved like water given form, her living sword carving through the corrupted roots with ease. Where the blade struck, the darkness recoiled, the wounds weeping silver sap instead of black ichor. But for every root she severed, two more took its place.
The Herald watched from the centre of the storm, Eldri's golden eyes alight with malicious amusement. "You cannot win," it called over the shrieking roots. "The hunger is older than your kingdoms. Older than your gods. It will always find a way back."
Seraphina rolled beneath another attack, her mind racing. The acorn burned in her grip, its light pulsing in time with the great tree's heartbeat. She could feel the connection between them—the tree's roots stretching beneath the castle, beneath the land itself. And deeper still, to something vast and slumbering.
The truth struck her like lightning. The hunger wasn't in the throne. The throne had been a cage, and they'd just set it free.
The roots coiled around the Herald like a living throne, their blackened lengths pulsing with unnatural rhythm. Eldri's stolen face tilted as she watched them struggle, golden eyes gleaming with something between amusement and pity.
"You still don't understand," the Herald murmured. The roots beneath her feet bloomed grotesque flowers - their petals edged with teeth, their centres dripping thick, dark nectar. "The hunger you've been fighting was never yours to contain."
Lysandra's sword flared brighter as she severed another attacking tendril. The severed root writhed on the ground before dissolving into silver mist. "Then whose was it?" she demanded, her voice echoing strangely, layered with the whispers of the heartwood.
The Herald smiled. A root slithered up her arm like a lover's caress, its tip pressing against her temple. When she spoke again, her voice was no longer just her own, but the chorus of every corrupted soul that had ever worn the hollow crown.
"Ours."
The vision struck with the force of a tidal wave:
A world before kingdoms. Before thrones. A primordial forest where great trees stood sentinel over sleeping darkness. And the first betrayal - not of sister by brother, but of wardens by their charges. The first time mortal hands had taken what was never meant to be taken.
The first hunger.
Seraphina gasped as the acorn in her palm burned white-hot. The pain cleared the vision from her mind, leaving only the Herald's knowing smile.
"You see now," the Herald whispered. "The crown was never the source. Only a vessel. Just as I am. Just as she was." A root-tipped finger pointed at Lysandra.
Lysandra staggered as if struck, the sword's glow flickering. The branching scar across her chest pulsed erratically, its light dimming where the corruption spread closest. Seraphina moved without thinking. She pressed the blazing acorn against Lysandra's scar just as another root lashed toward them.
The impact sent shockwaves through the courtyard. Light erupted from their joined hands - not just silver now, but the vibrant green of new growth, the rich brown of fertile earth, the gold of dawn breaking through centuries of darkness.
The Herald screamed as the light struck her stolen form. Eldri's features melted like wax, revealing the writhing mass of roots beneath - roots that burned where the pure light touched them.
"You cannot win!" the Herald shrieked, its voice fracturing into a thousand dying whispers. "The hunger always returns! The roots always remember!"
Lysandra raised her sword, its blade now glowing with the same multifaceted light. "Then we'll remind them of something older," she said.
And plunged the blade into the earth.
The ground erupted in a geyser of silver and shadow. The great tree's branches shook as its roots surged upward, twining around the corrupted tendrils in an embrace that was both tender and terrible. Where clean roots met corrupted ones, the darkness didn't vanish - it transformed, the poison drawn out like venom from a wound.
The Herald's form collapsed inward, roots unravelling until only a single silver acorn remained where it had stood - identical to the one in Seraphina's hand, but pulsing with faint darkness at its core.
Silence fell over the courtyard.
Then, slowly, the great tree began to sing.
The song of the great tree resonated through the ruined courtyard like the first rain after a century of drought. Its melody vibrated in Seraphina's bones, at once foreign and intimately familiar—a lullaby half-remembered from a dream. The silver leaves shimmered with each note, casting prismatic light across the shattered stones.
Lysandra stood transfixed, her living sword still buried in the earth. The branching scar across her chest pulsed in perfect harmony with the tree's song, its glow shifting from silver to gold and back again. When she spoke, her voice carried the same layered resonance as the music around them.
"It's calling them home."
Seraphina needed no clarification. She could feel it—the ancient roots stretching beneath their feet, their furthest tendrils brushing against something vast and slumbering in the depths. The twin acorns in her palm and at her feet throbbed in unison, their rhythm quickening as the song grew louder.
A rustling sound drew her attention upward. The tree's bark was shifting, its silver surface rippling like water as shapes began to emerge—faces, hundreds of them, their features formed from the natural grooves and whorls of the wood. Some Seraphina recognized—Anara's peaceful expression, the corpse-king's hollow eyes, Eldri's fierce gaze. Others were strangers, their visages worn smooth by time.
All singing.
All remembering.
The acorn at Seraphina's feet rolled toward its twin in her hand, drawn by some invisible force. When they touched, the vision struck—
The first warden standing beneath the primordial tree, her hands outstretched as she wove roots and starlight into twin seeds. One to nurture. One to cleanse. A failsafe for when the hunger inevitably woke.
The betrayal as mortal hands stole one seed and twisted its purpose.
The long, slow corruption as generation after generation fed the darkness they thought to control.
The vision shattered as the acorns fused together with a sound like a thunderclap. Light erupted from the union, so brilliant it bleached the color from the world. Seraphina's eyes burned, but she couldn't look away—couldn't blink as the light took shape before her.
Not a crown.
Not a weapon.
But a door.
An archway of intertwined roots and branches, its surface carved with runes that pulsed with the same multifaceted glow as Lysandra's scar. Beyond it lay not the ruined courtyard, but the heartwood chamber—Anara's resting place now empty, the dagger's poison finally purged.
The song reached its crescendo, and the faces in the tree began to step forward.