The world beyond the Spine was not dead.It was watching.
As Aero, Mica, and Kaeli crossed the ridge into the next valley, they were met with a sight that shouldn't have been possible.
It wasn't sand.
It wasn't stone.
It was green.
A forest.
In the middle of the wasteland.
It stretched out for miles beneath a ceiling of twisting clouds, roots breaking through the earth like veins, leaves whispering with a thousand voices. But the deeper they stepped in, the more Aero realized—
This wasn't a forest.
It was a graveyard.
They passed trees that grew from ribcages.Flowers that bloomed from skulls.Vines that clung to swords embedded in the earth.
Mica shivered. "This is wrong. Life's not supposed to grow like this."
"It's not wrong," Kaeli said. "It's old."
Aero knelt by a flower with red-glass petals. His fingers brushed the soil. Beneath it, he felt hearts—lifeforce preserved in roots, whispers of the people who had become part of the land.
"Who were they?" he asked.
Kaeli stared into the canopy.
"They were like us. Refugees. Survivors. Runaways from the Empire's cleansing fires."
Mica frowned. "But they're dead."
"No," Kaeli said. "They became something more. This place isn't mourning them. It's remembering."
As night fell, they reached a glade where the trees curved into an arch, as if bowing to something.
At its center was a monument—a twisted pillar of whitewood, spiraling upward with names etched along every inch.
Names of the fallen.
Kaeli approached and pressed her palm to it.
The pillar glowed faint green.
"Place your hand," she told Aero.
He did.
The instant his skin met the wood, it spoke.
Not with words.
With memories.
A war. Fire raining from the skies. Children screaming. A girl clutching her little brother as soldiers tore their village apart. A boy whose mother died shielding him with her own flames.
Pain.Desperation.Hope.
And one final image: a circle of survivors planting roots in blood-soaked earth and whispering a vow—
"Let us become the garden. Let them grow through us."
Aero staggered back.
His hand smoked faintly.
"What was that?" he asked, voice trembling.
Kaeli watched him closely. "That was the vow. The one we all make before we join the resistance."
Mica's eyes widened. "There's a resistance?"
Kaeli turned, cloak swirling.
"Come."
They descended into the garden's heart, where the trees thinned and the roots coiled around an ancient gate of obsidian.
Kaeli whispered something.
The gate opened.
A staircase wound downward into the earth, lit by flickering blue-green moss and hanging bone lanterns.
At the bottom—civilization.
Built into a cave the size of a coliseum, an underground city pulsed with life. Tents of woven root. Children laughing. Traders bartering. And warriors training in rings etched with elemental circles.
Mica's mouth fell open.
Aero felt it instantly.
The Resonance here was harmonized. Controlled. Alive.
Kaeli nodded at the awestruck silence. "Welcome to Verdenthorn. Last free city of the wasteland."
They were led to a long hall dug into the roots of a petrified tree.
Inside, seven figures sat in a semicircle—each bearing scars, tattoos, and cloaks woven from the wasteland's own vines. These were no soldiers.
They were keepers.
Kaeli stepped forward. "This is him. The Ash-Born."
The oldest keeper, a man with skin like dry bark and eyes like burning sap, stood slowly.
"You carry the flame," he said to Aero. "But you breathe the root."
Aero nodded. "I'm not here to rule. I'm here to listen."
The keepers looked at one another.
And then… they bowed.
Later, Aero sat alone near the fountain at the city's center.
He was quiet. Not from fear—but from the weight of what he had seen.
Mica approached and plopped beside him, biting into some kind of fruit. "They already worship you."
"I don't want worship."
"Too bad. They think you're prophecy incarnate."
Aero shook his head. "I'm not. I'm just… trying to survive."
Mica bumped his shoulder. "Survivors make the best leaders."
He looked at her, and for a second, he almost smiled.
Almost.
Then a scream echoed through the tunnels.
They shot to their feet.
Kaeli rushed into view. "Scouts from the Empire. South tunnel. They've found us."
Aero's pulse spiked.
He wasn't ready.
But the garden didn't care.
It was time to fight.