The root coiled in Kael's palm like a worm tasting the air.
It was small. Fragile.
A thread of darkness no thicker than a vein.
And yet—
It pulsed.
Kane saw it too. His laughter died in his throat.
"No," he rasped. "No, no, no—"
He grabbed Kael's wrist, his fingers slick with blood and peeling bark.
"Crush it. Now."
Kael didn't move.
The root trembled against his skin.
Not in fear.
In recognition.
It knew him.
And he—
He knew it.
The garden was gone.
The Heart was unmade.
The roots were dead.
But this one wasn't.
And it wasn't just alive.
It was hungry.
Kane's grip tightened. "Kael."
The root twitched again.
Then it burrowed.
Kael gasped as the root slithered into the hole in his palm, vanishing beneath his skin.
The pain was a white-hot needle driving straight through bone, up his arm, into his chest—
And then it was gone.
The hole in his palm sealed over.
His skin was unbroken.
But he could still feel it.
Inside him.
Growing.
Kane recoiled. "What the fuck was that?"
Kael flexed his hand. His veins darkened for a heartbeat, then faded.
"I don't know," he lied.
Because he did.
The garden had left him a message.
A gift.
A last, desperate whisper of what it had been—
and what it could be again.
The wind shifted.
The air smelled of salt and smoke.
Not the garden's cloying nectar.
The real world.
They were free.
But for how long?
Kane staggered to his feet, swaying.
His body was a ruin of shed bark and raw flesh, but his eyes were clear.
"We need to move," he said. "Before someone finds us."
Kael stood slowly.
His limbs felt heavier than they should.
Or maybe it's just the weight of what's inside you now.
He pushed the thought away.
They walked.
Behind them, the ruins of the garden sagged into the earth, its bones crumbling, its flesh dissolving.
The last of its roots withered in the sunlight.
But not all of them.
Not the one that mattered.
Kael kept his hand clenched at his side.
Waiting.
Growing.
And somewhere, deep in the dark of his ribs,
the root unfurled.