The scream hadn't stopped echoing.
Aero and Mica raced through the tunnels, following Kaeli's lead. Roots shifted aside for her like they knew the urgency. The ground itself trembled with warning.
"South tunnel's a bottleneck," Kaeli said. "If they get past it, we lose the whole city."
"How many scouts?" Aero asked, breath sharp.
"Three. Maybe more. But they're not normal."
They weren't.
The moment they reached the tunnel mouth, Aero felt them.
Not with his eyes.Not with magic.With life.
Three signatures. Wrong. Twisted. Breathing with blood instead of air. Wrapped in a pulse that didn't belong to nature.
"Bloodcasters," Kaeli hissed. "Royal Inquisition."
Mica's face darkened. "I know them."
The tunnel was a scorched fracture in the canyon wall, lined with burnt roots and melted stone.
The Bloodcasters stepped out of the smoke like wraiths.
The first was masked in silver, robes flickering with embers.
The second wore no face—just a stitched mouth carved into their skin, grinning with magic.
The third carried a cage—small, iron, filled with twitching green flame.
Aero's breath hitched.
He knew that flame.
It was stolen life.
They weren't here to scout.They were here to harvest.
The first Bloodcaster raised a hand.
The roots shrieked and died.
One motion—and all magic in the stone collapsed.
Mica dove forward, hands glowing with spinning wind. She slashed a cyclone through the smoke, catching the masked one across the shoulder.
No reaction.
The second raised a hand.
Blood dripped from their fingers.
And then Mica screamed.
She dropped, clutching her arm—her veins glowing red, writhing beneath her skin.
"They're inside me!" she shouted.
Aero moved without thinking.
He drew in a breath—and pushed.
Not with magic. With life.
The world around him shivered.
Roots surged from the ground, piercing upward in a spiral. Not to kill—but to cleanse.
The blood magic was rejected.
Mica gasped as the glow faded.
The Bloodcasters paused.
One whispered. "He's awakened."
Kaeli attacked next—bone staff whirling, vines wrapping around her arms. She struck like a beast, forcing the Bloodcasters to retreat down the tunnel.
"We have to cut them off before they call for more," she barked.
Aero nodded. "Then let's bury them here."
He knelt, fingers on the ground.
The Resonance screamed.
Not here. Not this soil. Too weak. Too burned. Too brittle.
But Aero didn't retreat.
He pressed harder—deeper.
Past the ash. Past the stone. Into the old soil. Where roots still remembered how to grow.
"Lend me your strength," he whispered. "Lend me your pain."
The ground answered.
A roar tore through the canyon.
The entire tunnel shifted.
Roots exploded from the walls—not green, but white and gold, spiraling like veins of light. They slammed into the Bloodcasters, forcing them back, choking their cages.
One of them screamed as the cage shattered. The green flame inside flickered—and died.
The Bloodcasters tried to retreat.
But Kaeli was already above them, leaping from a root, staff crashing down into the faceless one's skull.
Mica twisted the air like a blade, her wind magic now sharp and fast enough to draw blood.
And Aero… stood in the center of it all.
The tunnel pulsed with life.
The Empire had sent monsters.
But the wasteland had birthed its own.
When the dust settled, one Bloodcaster lay unconscious.
The other two had retreated—one burning, one bleeding.
Kaeli bound the survivor in thorns and bone.
"We have maybe three days before they return with more," she said. "We either run…"
"…or we fight," Aero finished.
Mica turned to him. "What you did—was that…"
"Life magic," he said. "But deeper than anything I've felt before. It wasn't just mine. It was theirs."
He pointed to the roots, the earth, the glowing tendrils now receding.
"I think the land is starting to trust me."
Kaeli raised a brow. "Then the city will, too."
Later that night, Aero sat by the monument again.
The whitewood pillar now glowed brighter, warm against the cold wind of the wasteland.
He placed his hand on it.
More names appeared—new ones. Names of those buried in the fight. The Resonance remembered.
Mica joined him.
"You scared me," she said quietly. "When you reached into the land like that. I thought you'd lose yourself."
"I almost did," Aero admitted.
"But you didn't," she smiled.
"No. I think…"
He looked up at the stars above the wasteland, framed by a canopy of twisted roots.
"I think I found something worth protecting."