The next forty hours became a pattern etched in muscle and sap.
Verdant Wells multiplied; three, then five, then eight, each a lung breathing water into neighborhoods the blight had tried to teach to thirst.
Symbiotic Gardens layered the Rootsite until the city looked like a cathedral that had learned to eat and heal. Lure Thickets sang and lied and fed the walls with wolves that had once been problems.
Clayton and Torren ran the hard edges.
Veyra and her Wardens turned alleys into killing lanes where no Construct reached the second corner. Kaelin made the air untrustworthy for anything that walked on manufactured legs.
Soren's quiet rage never cooled.
Everywhere, Lorn kept the pulse from tripping over itself, mending before breaks became fractures, speaking soft to people who needed a voice that didn't come wrapped in orders or iron.
Each time Korrath escalated, the Rootsite learned a new way to breathe.
And yet…
