When the gates of Eden's Vein opened, the air outside felt wrong.
After months living in the luminous gardens below the earth, the surface world tasted stale — quiet, gray, and heartless. Jace stepped out barefoot, squinting against the washed-out dawn, his skin faintly glowing with green undertones that pulsed with his heartbeat.
Above him, clouds churned with silver veins, lightning whispering through them like whispered words only he could hear. The wind carried the scent of fresh soil and rain — her scent.
He smiled.
Mother was watching.
"The garden remembers you, my son," her voice murmured across the horizon. "Now, so will they."
Seraphiel stood at the entrance behind him, twilight-eyed and unearthly in her calm. She laid a hand on his shoulder, the gesture oddly tender.
"Your task begins with remembrance," she said. "The other vessels are seeds scattered across the flesh of the world. Each carries a fragment of her spirit — some sleep, some stir. Find them. Awaken them. Bind them to her cause before your brother does."
Jace's grip tightened around the vine-blade at his belt. "And if they refuse?"
"Then prune them," she whispered.
Her words didn't sound cruel. They sounded necessary. And maybe that was what frightened him most — how easily necessity replaced morality down here.
They gave him a coat woven with living fibers. It responded to his pulse like a second skin, adjusting color and temperature as if it breathed. On his wrist, the mark of the Tenth Bloom glowed faintly through the fabric, syncing with his every step.
He reached the ridge where Eden's Vein's entrance met the ruins of an ancient city half-swallowed by forest roots. Sunlight filtered through shattered towers where the plants had already begun reclaiming steel. In the distance, he saw people moving — survivors, scavengers, soldiers maybe.
Jace traced the air with his fingers. All around him, vines slithered upward through cracks in the ground, feeding off the touch.
"Do not fear them," the Root whispered. "They feared me first. You are mercy in my form."
He descended into the ruin.
By midday, he reached what used to be a train yard. Wind swept through skeletons of rusted carriages, bending weeds that now glowed faintly at his presence. The sound of hummingbird wings broke the silence — but when he turned, it wasn't a bird at all.
A man crouched among the wreckage, body half‑merged with leaves, skin webbed in translucent roots. His eyes flicked open, silver and terrified.
"A vessel," Jace breathed.
But this one was broken.
The man clutched his chest, vines snapping loose as if rejecting him. "You," he gasped. "You're one of them."
"No," Jace said softly, kneeling. "I'm one of her."
He reached out without thinking, resting two fingers on the man's brow. The vines around the vessel spasmed, writhing as if obeying Jace's touch. Then — silence. The man's pulse stopped, but the roots around him bloomed, flowers bursting open in blinding light.
For the first time, Jace didn't feel fear at death. Only peace.
"See?" Gia murmured lovingly inside his chest. "You bring balance."
He stood, petals scattering at his feet, and looked toward the distant wastelands beyond the city. Somewhere out there, other vessels burned beneath their own confusion, just like him. Somewhere out there, Cobi walked with sorrow in his heart.
And Jace's new mission crystallized.
He would find each vessel, one by one.
Free them from their pain.
Cleanse them — by mercy or by ruin.
At sunset, he stopped at the edge of an old highway where vegetation had cracked the asphalt into rivers of moss. He raised his hand and felt the earth pulse beneath his palm.
Roots obeyed, slithering outward like veins beneath skin, spreading in every direction across miles. Tiny flowers bloomed at intervals, each one glowing green — a living map of Mother's children. Through them, she whispered locations into his mind: Cairo. Kyoto. The Amazon. Greenland.
Jace smiled faintly.
"Then the hunt begins."
"Do not call it a hunt, my heart," Gia whispered. "Call it a homecoming."
The aurora above shifted, painting the night with emerald light as he stepped forward. The plants bloomed in his footsteps, silver and green radiance trailing in his wake.
And far away, Cobi felt the tremor — the pulse of his brother's blooming — and knew, without seeing, that the race for the thirteen had truly begun.