Jason stood before the sleeping woman, his heart hammering against his ribs.
She was human. Undeniably, irrefutably human. Her skin had the same warmth as his, not the pale, otherworldly glow of elves. Her ears were round, soft, lacking the pointed elegance of the fey races. Her face was structured like his—familiar in a way that made his chest ache.
"If humans exist in this world," he thought, "then my existence is not so unique."
The realization unsettled him more than he expected. He had grown accustomed to being the anomaly, the creature that no one could identify, the pink-skinned outsider who did not belong. But if there were others—if there was a human race hidden somewhere, sleeping in gardens of impossible flowers—then everything he thought he knew about this world was wrong.
He tried to leave the room but the roots did not respond to him anymore.
Jason screamed but to no avail, there was no response and if anything, his voice had no effects on the roots either.
