The boy stood a short distance away, framed by the golden light bleeding from the tree. His eyes were the same color as its branches—deep and bright at once—his hair catching the glow in fine strands that looked almost aflame. His skin was pale, not with sickness, but with the kind of still, untouched quality you would see in carved stone. He was small. Seven years old, perhaps.
My tongue sat heavy in my mouth, the words I wanted to speak tangling somewhere in the back of my throat. Am I hallucinating? I asked myself. Or… is this someone from before? Someone I knew, but forgot? The thought was almost frightening—like staring at a face in a dream and realizing you might have seen it before in life. Questions crowded in, one after another, pressing at the edges of my mind. None made it to my lips.
"You look miserable," he said.
The sound of his voice pulled me from my thoughts. It was not mocking, not exactly—more like a small, plain truth spoken without ceremony. Yet hearing it, from him, under this light, made something in my chest tighten.
I did not answer right away. Instead, I slowly lifted my arms from my lap, elbows aching from having sat so long in the same position. I leaned forward slightly, still seated on the slab of warm stone. The heat had seeped through my clothes, dull but steady, grounding me. My hand moved toward him, fingers stiff, and when they brushed his cheek, I felt… nothing.
He was cold, yes—but not like a living body in a chill wind. The cold was without texture. My fingers passed through as if his skin had no weight at all. No softness, no resistance. He didn't blink, didn't flinch. He simply let me touch him, as still as a statue.
It was like touching air. No—less than that. Wind has shape. Wind pushes back, carries weight. He had none.
Hallucination… or a phantom.
I lowered my hands slowly, resting them on my thighs. My gaze shifted to the tree, that towering giant before me. From here, its scale was overwhelming—its lowest branches still lost somewhere above the clouds, its trunk a wall of gold-tinged bark broken by darker patches where rot seemed to gnaw from beneath.
"Perhaps I am," I said at last. My voice sounded thinner than I expected. Exhaustion sat in my bones like a second skeleton, heavier than flesh. Days, maybe weeks, of moving forward without direction had frayed something inside me. My ambition was still there, but without a thread to follow, it was just… weight.
The boy had not moved. His eyes were still on me, his expression unreadable.
I turned to face him fully this time, studying him under the golden light. The lines of his face were delicate, almost unreal—too perfect to belong to a child living in any place I knew. Still, something about him stirred a strange, small warmth in me. The thought slipped in before I could stop it. An answer to my misery. An angel, sent to guide me.
The corner of my mouth twitched upward, a brief and unsteady smile.
"Do you live around here?" I asked.
His brow furrowed slightly. He leaned his head back—not in fear, but as though the question had brushed against some private thought.
"Do you see people like me often?" I added. My own voice sounded quieter than I intended, carrying a tone I couldn't quite place.
"Yes," he said after a pause. "Although not all of them looked as hopeless as you do right now."
The words landed heavier than they should have. He was young, but his tone carried weight, the kind born from knowledge rather than age. I didn't know why, but my gut told me not to dismiss it. If he was here to guide me—if that was what this was—then there was meaning in every word he gave.
"Is that so," I said slowly, my eyes still fixed on him. "Do they have… a solid plan when they come here? Some kind of task to perform in front of this massive tree?" My arm moved in a vague gesture toward the golden giant behind him, though the motion felt almost pointless—there was no way to fully encompass its size with a single movement.
He tilted his head, his expression folding into that same puzzled look I had seen moments ago.
"Plan? I don't know what you mean."
It really was like speaking to a child. The simplicity in his voice made me choose my next words carefully, as if I were treading over fragile ground.
"Why do people come here?" I asked, my tone measured, almost coaxing.
This time he didn't answer immediately. His gaze shifted for a brief moment, his lips pressing together as though he were weighing something in his head. When he finally spoke, it came with a kind of quiet certainty.
"They come here… to sing songs."
My brow furrowed before I could stop myself. Songs? The word sounded strange, almost absurd, in this place. Was I supposed to sing to unlock something? A test? A key?
"They came here in groups," he continued. "They carry flowers, water in vessels. They dance here, they sing here, sometimes they shout words at the tree. They kill animals." His voice carried no judgment, just a faint note of remembrance. "Although… it has been several years since they last came here to dance. Such a pity. I liked when there were so many people here. Now I just feel… alone. They even—"
"Yes, yes," I interrupted, sharper than I intended, "but… was there someone else? Someone who didn't come in groups. Who didn't sing, or dance."
I already knew what he was describing—the rituals the ancients once performed here, long before the angel of light and his victim had stepped into this place. That knowledge was useless to me now. I needed something different. Something about the ones who had escaped this realm, like I meant to.
"Other?" he repeated softly, as if turning the word over in his mind. Then his eyes lit, the gold in them catching a strange brightness.
"So… you are one of them."
The way he said it made my stomach tighten. It didn't sound like a title I wanted.
"I have seen people like you," he said, his voice steady. "They come to die."
The words struck harder than they should have, so much so that my body stiffened, almost flinching back.
"Wha—what do you mean by 'die'?" I asked, my voice uneven.
He nodded, as though the question required no explanation at all. "They come here… I see them sitting on the stone, expecting them to dance, or sing, or at least talk to me. But instead…" His gaze drifted upward, his voice lowering to something almost bitter. "Instead they just keep looking at the tree. The stupid tree. The idiots."
"What happens to them?" I asked, leaning forward without realizing it.
His head turned back toward me, his face wearing that same confused expression, as though I'd missed something obvious. "I just told you."
"They die," I said, repeating the words slowly.
He nodded once, then looked toward the tree. "The tree covers them with its roots. It lifts them up. And in the air… the cruel tree turns them into a flower."
He shaped the motion with his hands—something blooming, opening—before letting them fall to his sides.
"The flowers bloom, petals scattering. Sometimes they are pink. Sometimes brown. Sometimes gold. And sometimes… they don't bloom at all." His voice dipped, almost to a whisper. "The bud just drops."
He turned and pointed toward the far side of the space behind him. I followed his hand.
There, lying alone against the roots was a flower bud. Dry. Lifeless.
The bud was small—smaller than I'd expected—and at first glance, it might have been mistaken for a fallen seed. Nevertheless, the longer I looked, the more I noticed its edges, the thin, brittle petals curled inward as if clutching themselves against the cold. Its stem had withered to the color of old bone, the kind that crumbles if pressed too hard.
It looked fragile enough to vanish if the wind touched it. Yet here it remained, untouched, lying in that quiet place where the roots twisted in slow, lifeless coils.
I kept staring, my mind unwilling to let go of the image. A person… The thought was difficult to hold, almost grotesque. That something once breathing, once alive, could be reduced to that silent, brittle, forgotten at the foot of this monstrous tree.
My stomach tightened. I tried to picture the moment the boy described: the roots snaking upward, lifting a body into the air, the bark swallowing flesh until nothing remained but a bloom. But my mind refused to complete it. I didn't want to know what the face looked like in that moment before it became a flower.
The light from the tree reached the bud, but it didn't make it glow. If anything, the gold only deepened its dryness, drawing out the cracks along its surface. A hollow beauty, the kind that held no warmth.
I shifted my gaze away, but the shape of it remained behind my eyes.
Is that what waits for me?
The question felt heavier than the answer could ever be.
Is this really worth it?
The thought lingered, pressing against the inside of my skull. Being turned into a flower sounded bad enough… but to know there was a chance it wouldn't even bloom? That it might wither before it even opened? The image of that dead bud still clung to me.
But after all this way… I couldn't turn back now. The thought of retracing my steps, of facing that empty distance again, was almost worse. Moreover, the old man could return at any moment. I didn't want to see him. Not here. Not now.
I looked at the boy again.
"So… all they do is stare at the tree, huh?"
He nodded once, the motion small, almost deliberate.
I hesitated. My breath left me in a long sigh, and my gaze returned to the golden giant before me. My skin was damp—though the air wasn't hot, a line of sweat had formed on my forehead, sliding down the side of my face in a slow path.
Time passed. The kind of time that felt thick, almost shapeless. The boy didn't leave; instead, he lowered himself onto a nearby stone, his presence constant but quiet. I kept staring at the tree. The light from it didn't change, didn't shift. I couldn't tell if minutes or hours were passing.
After some unknown stretch, his voice broke through.
"Are you trying to die too?"
I didn't answer right away. My mind wasn't sure if speaking would disturb whatever it was I was doing—if staring could even be called doing anything at all.
"Oh, you look so miserable," he said after a moment, his tone more matter-of-fact than cruel. "You'll die by yourself before the tree even tries to take you. Besides, the people who died didn't look this clueless."
I finally lowered my head. The muscles in my neck protested instantly, and a dull ache radiated upward into my skull.
"What do you mean by 'this clueless'?" I asked, my voice heavier than before.
He just shook his head. "They didn't look as scared and clueless as you do right now. They looked like they came here specifically to die. But you… you look like you only decided you wanted to die after I told you so."
His words lodged deep, twisting in my chest. It brought a tangle of thoughts I hadn't considered—things I should have remembered.
Of course. How could I forget?
The tree seeks and guides specific people. People who carry something—dreams they can't let go of, a grail they must reach, a regret they need to outlive. That was why I was rejected when I first came here. Why it had let me die… if not for the old man.
I rested my elbows on my lap, lowering my head into my hands. The weight of them felt heavier than it should have been.
But haven't I changed? Don't I have a purpose now? Right?
"Hey," the boy said, his tone softer now, almost curious, "why do you want to die, anyway? Just go live a life on your own. It's way better than turning into a flower and withering."
His words sparked something unclear, but sharp enough to make me pause.
Why do I want to die?
It wasn't the same as asking why I need to live. It was similar… and yet different in a way I couldn't quite name.
Maybe that was it.
I want to live.
Why? To climb through this realm. To see where I came from. To see what lies beyond it.
However, if I had to die… what could be a reason to die for?
What could make me accept it? What could make it feel complete?
I didn't know.
Maybe the answer was there—hidden in that question I had never asked myself before.
The question I'd been turning inward—about dying, about purpose—lingered between us, heavy enough to almost feel like it might tip over into something else.
I raised my head from my hands, looking at him. He was still on the stone, one knee drawn up, his small hands resting against it. His golden eyes hadn't left me, though his face carried no expression I could read.
"You asked me why I want to die," I said slowly. "So I'll ask you something."
He tilted his head just slightly.
"What's your dream?"
The words felt strange coming out, as if they didn't belong to this place, like they didn't belong between us at all. "To achieve," I added after a moment. "Even if you're… whatever you are. A phantom. A ghost. A child." My voice lowered. "You must have something. Regret. A thing you want, but can't have."
His eyes narrowed a fraction—not in hostility, but in thought. For the first time since I'd seen him, there was no immediate answer.
He did not speak.
I leaned forward slightly, waiting. The golden light pooled around him, catching the edges of his pale hair in a soft halo. His small frame was still, almost too still, as if the air here had wrapped itself around him.
I could hear faint movements in the roots of the tree—soft creaks and groans, as if it were breathing somewhere deep underground. A strand of wind passed through, carrying the faint, bitter scent of the katros flowers.
He turned his head away from me, looking toward the tree, and for a while, he simply watched it. His gaze wasn't fixed on its base or its height—just somewhere in the middle, where the light thinned and the clouds pressed close around the trunk.
A moment passed. Then another.
The sky above was dense with motionless clouds, thick enough to smother anything beyond them.
Finally, his voice came, quiet, unhurried. "I want to see what heaven looks like."
He didn't look back at me. His eyes stayed on the tree, and then drifted higher, toward that choked sky as though he could pierce it with sight alone.
Heaven.
The word stayed in the air, as if it refused to dissolve.
It wasn't a word I'd heard here, not from the mouths of those who lived or from the whispers of the dying. I wasn't sure if it meant the same thing to him as it once did to me—if it was a place of light, or peace, or simply an end that felt less cruel than the rest.
The boy's gaze never wavered from the clouds above the tree. The golden light touched his face without warming it, painting his pale skin in a hue that made him seem both nearer and farther away.
I watched him in silence, my own thoughts turning inward. What does he think he will find there? Is it a place that exists at all in this world—or just something the tree has let him imagine?
The roots shifted faintly beneath the soil, a deep sound that faded almost as soon as it began. The air was still again.
"If I climbed it," I found myself saying, my voice quiet, careful not to disturb the space between us, "and I reached it… if there really is something beyond…"
He finally looked at me then, the gold in his eyes catching the light in a way that made them seem sharper, brighter.
"…could I take you there?"
For a moment, he didn't move.
Then, slowly, the tension in his small shoulders eased. His head tilted, just slightly, as though my words had slipped into a part of him he hadn't touched in a long time.
The golden light pooled over him, catching in the fine strands of his hair. His lips parted—just enough for a shallow breath—but no words came.
A trace of something flickered across his face. Not a smile, not yet. More like the hint of one, caught halfway between doubt and the start of hope. His eyes widened, and for the first time since I'd seen him, they didn't look ancient or knowing. They looked… young.
The disbelief was there—in the way his brow furrowed, in the way he blinked once as if to make sure I'd really said what I had. But behind it, something brighter began to show, pushing through like light through thin cloth.
His feet shifted against the stone, restless now. His gaze darted from me to the tree and back again, as though he were trying to imagine the distance, the climb, the place beyond the clouds.
Still, he didn't answer.
And so the silence stretched on, holding us both in it.
The wind stirred again—soft, almost reluctant—carrying with it the faint scent of damp soil and the sweetness of the flowers scattered around the roots. The sound of it moving through the moss-covered stones was faint, but it filled the space where words should have been.
His eyes kept flicking back to the tree, tracing its trunk upward until the clouds swallowed the gold from sight. It was as if he were trying to see past them already, to steal a glimpse of what he'd just confessed to wanting.
When he looked at me again, the disbelief was still there, but softer now—thinned by something warmer. His small hands tightened against his knees. His lips moved once before any sound came.
"…Would you really?"
It wasn't a challenge. It wasn't even a question meant to test me. It was fragile, the way a child might ask if a promise could survive the weight of the world.
His gaze held mine for only a moment before it slipped away again, drawn back to the towering shape between the sky and us. I could see it in the way he leaned forward slightly—he was already imagining himself there, high above the clouds, seeing whatever it was he called heaven.
"I wonder why not," I said at last, my voice lower than I meant it to be. "Since I'm planning to leave this place and transcend already, it isn't much of a problem to take you with me."
His eyes widened—not just bright, but alive, lit in a way I hadn't seen before. The corners of his mouth turned up, and for the briefest moment, there it was—a smile. Unrestrained, like a child seeing something impossible and believing in it anyway. Wider than I expected.
However, just as quickly, it vanished. His gaze lowered, the light in it slipping away as though it had been taken back into him.
"Does that mean…" he hesitated, almost chewing on the words, "…I'll have to die with you?"
I hadn't thought about that. The question sat in my mind like a stone dropped into still water, sending ripples through everything I assumed. I didn't know how this was supposed to work—not for him, not for me. I had no idea how one turned into a flower, or if there was any choice in it at all. I wasn't even sure if my own dream could bear its own weight.
But his… his seemed untouched by doubt.
"Why do you want to see the heavens anyway?" I asked, leaning forward slightly.
For a moment, he didn't answer. His eyes stayed on the ground between us, as though the dirt might help him remember. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet—not fragile exactly, but heavy.
"When I came here… all I saw was blood."
He paused, his small fingers tracing absently along his own knee, brushing away flecks of dried mud.
"Blood… and war. People cutting each other apart over things I couldn't understand. The air smelled like rot, even in the open fields. There were bodies in the rivers. And everywhere—" his voice thinned, "—people running, screaming. Or just staring, like they'd given up."
I didn't move. I let the silence hold around him, because it felt wrong to fill it.
"I think," he went on, "I was getting used to it. That feeling. The chaos. Like maybe that was what this place was supposed to be." He looked away then, up toward the tree's massive trunk, though his eyes weren't really seeing it.
"Then… I met her."
His hand tightened slightly on his knee.
"She was… part of someone's army. But not like the others. She didn't fight. She… healed people." His voice slowed again, as if he were weighing whether to say the next part. "She had this… bracelet. A plain metal band, except for a stone in it. It glowed. Just faintly. But when she touched someone with it… the pain went away. Or the bleeding stopped. Sometimes… people even stood up again."
He exhaled softly through his nose, almost like a laugh, but there was no humor in it.
"She saved me once. I had eaten something rotten… didn't know any better. I couldn't breathe, couldn't even crawl. And then… she was there."
His eyes lowered again.
"She told me this place… was once heaven."
Another pause—longer this time. His lips pressed together, and when he spoke again, it was quieter.
"She said it wasn't always… like this. That something happened. Something… that made everything fall apart. But she never said what."
He swallowed.
"After that, she… showed me things. Not much. Just small things. Places where the water was clean enough to drink. Where the air didn't smell like smoke or corpses. Where the flowers still grew." His voice faltered. "I… didn't know there were still places like that."
He stopped again, the words hanging there as if they didn't want to leave his mouth.
"Then one day… she didn't come."
His gaze stayed down, and I realized his fingers were twisting at the edge of his sleeve now.
"I thought maybe… she'd just gone somewhere else. Or maybe I did something wrong. I waited… days. At the same place." He shook his head slightly. "But then I found her."
The next pause was the longest yet. The air between us felt heavier.
"By the river. She… didn't look like herself anymore."
His eyes were dull when they met mine again.
"That was when I wondered if this really was the heaven she talked about. And if it wasn't… then maybe it's still out there. Somewhere. The real one."
His gaze drifted upward slowly, tracing the gold of the tree as it vanished into the pale churn of clouds.
"So… I made it my dream," he said, almost to himself. "To see the true heaven. The one she meant."
He looked younger now. As if speaking of the past had drawn something out of him—a faint shadow of those earlier days. The sharpness in his eyes softened, replaced by something lighter. Innocence. It was disarming in a place like this. I found myself smiling before I realized it.
He noticed, tilting his head slightly, unsure.
"You have it," I said quietly. "You'll see what she meant. I will take you there… even if it burdens my own grail. Even if I have to die doing it. I think I can be satisfied with an ending like that. Right? Dying in heaven doesn't sound so bad."
His eyes lit again—brighter this time—and his smile returned. It was the kind of smile only a child could wear without pretense.
I turned my gaze to the tree. It seemed brighter too. I hadn't noticed before, but if one could look past the rot twisting at its roots, the thing itself… "It's really beautiful," I murmured.
As I stared, still caught in its strange glow, the boy's voice pulled me back.
"Take this."
I looked at him. Something rested in his small hands, and at first glance, the golden light around it forced my eyes to narrow. But as I leaned closer, its shape began to resolve—some kind of crest… or badge. The edges curved in intricate lines, flowing in and out like deliberate brushstrokes. Faint purple light pulsed along its surface. My thumb traced its rim, and only then did I notice—an eye. Not crude, not simple, but carved with painstaking detail, the curves more elaborate than any mark I'd seen.
"They call it a Rune," he said, his voice soft but steady. "I found it inside a fruit of the tree."
I extended my hand, and he placed it there.
"A fruit?"
"The tree used to drop fruits," he said softly, as if it were something he wasn't supposed to speak about. "A long time ago… when there were still people here. And… they had rituals. The fruits were like… gifts. That's what they thought, anyway." He hesitated, glancing at the roots as if they might overhear. "But… then there was the man who came as light. And after that, the fruits never came back. People called it… the curse of an angel."
He shifted his weight, his voice lowering even more. "This one… I found it. A long time after. I kept it hidden. And… when it started rotting… there was something inside. At first it was tiny, like a seed. But it… it grew. And then… it became this."
A rune. My knowledge of them was thin, but even I knew this could tip the balance—could bring the impossible within reach. If it worked as I suspected, I might truly be able to transcend… to bloom… to see heaven.
I looked back at the boy. He was still smiling, the way any boy should. No weight on his face. No shadow of the things he'd seen. He had already endured enough. I would take him to where he wanted to be. Where he belonged.
I smiled too, closing my hand around the rune.
That's when I felt it—subtle at first, like the shift of air before a storm. Then a sound, low and drawn-out, almost like wood groaning under its own weight.
I flinched.
The tree was moving.
The sound deepened. Not a single crack or snap, but something slower… thicker. It was like the groan of wood under weight, only drawn out far longer than it should have been. I turned my head toward it, my gaze falling to the roots.
At first, I thought it was only the light shifting—gold bleeding into shadow, shadow into gold—but then I saw it. The soil around the roots was stirring, crumbling in soft cascades. The roots themselves were moving.
Not swaying, not trembling. Moving.
They slid through the ground like veins searching for blood, like muscle beneath skin. Their bark flexed in a way bark shouldn't, and wherever they passed, the dirt seemed to sink, swallowed into something unseen.
Beside me, the boy's breath caught. I didn't look at him, but I felt it—a sharp, trembling inhale before his small fingers closed suddenly around mine. His grip was tight, almost desperate.
I didn't need to tell him it was fine. We both knew it wasn't.
I tightened my hold in return, forcing myself to stand. My body moved slow, careful—anything faster would've felt like panic, and panic would make us easy prey. My free hand slipped into my pocket, the faint weight of the rune pressing into my palm before I slid it down into the fabric of my pants. It was warm, as if it had taken something from my skin and was keeping it.
We turned back to face the tree. The roots were closer now. No rush, no stumble, no wasted movement—just the steady certainty of something that knew exactly where we were and had no reason to hurry.
The boy's other hand hovered near my arm now, unsure if he wanted to hold on with both. His breathing was uneven, his small frame almost leaning into mine.
I bent my knees slightly, testing my footing against the uneven ground, ready for whatever would come from beneath us.
That's when I heard it—faint at first, almost buried under the creak of the moving roots.
A sound that didn't belong here.
It wasn't part of the tree. It wasn't the wind.
It was a voice. Distant. Breaking the air in jagged bursts, cutting through the heaviness like something tearing.
A scream.
Not my name—just a word carried too far to make out clearly.
I turned my head sharply, eyes narrowing to cut through the haze. My grip on the boy didn't loosen.
And there, far away, half-obscured in the muted light, I saw him. The old man. Standing like a figure misplaced in time, one arm raised and waving hard, the other bracing himself against the cart beside him.
The oxen stood still, heads low, steam curling faint from their nostrils. The cart's wheels looked sunken into the earth, as if it had been standing there longer than he had.
His mouth was still open—another call forming, the sound lagging behind the movement of his lips.
I couldn't tell if he was warning us or telling us to come.
I didn't move at first—only stared at him, my breath caught halfway between relief and doubt.
Then I raised my hand. Still holding the boy's with the other, I gave a single, deliberate wave.
The old man froze mid-gesture, as if my answer was enough. But his eyes… they stayed fixed on me. Not flicking to the boy. Not once.
Could he see him from there? Or would he only see me, standing alone at the base of this cursed tree?
The thought unsettled me more than the roots had.
The boy's fingers squeezed mine tighter, pulling my attention back. His eyes were wide now—not at the old man, but at something behind me.
Before I could turn—before I could even set my footing—a sudden cold pressure locked around my ankle. The ground shifted beneath me, and something rough and unyielding coiled upward in one smooth motion.
A root.
It didn't jerk or pull—it simply wound around my leg, thick as an arm, the bark grinding faintly against itself as it tightened.
Then another curled around the boy, smaller but just as sure. He let out a sharp gasp and pressed against my side.
I tried to pull back, but the roots held fast, their strength not in sudden force, but in the slow, inevitable way they closed in—like they had all the time in the world to drag us under.
The boy clung to my hand as though that alone could keep us from being taken.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I had taken the safe road to the tree the day the boy set foot upon that mountain.
Not the treacherous paths that wound up through sharp stone and loose gravel, but the slow, winding trail my cart could bear. I had done that walk before — years ago — and I knew better than to trust my own legs on the cliffs. The oxen knew the way. They moved with the same stubborn rhythm they always did, hooves finding ground where I could not.
That morning, I had told myself I would wait for him. I had no plan beyond that. Just wait, and watch, and perhaps be there when he descended again. If he descended again.
Hours passed. The air at that height felt thinner, quieter. The only sound was the low, tired breath of my animals. I had begun to think I would see nothing at all, when I heard it — a dull, heavy sound, somewhere near the edge of the peak. It was not the shifting of stones or the groan of wind. It was heavier, sudden, final.
I left the cart where it stood and made my way forward, each step careful on the uneven ground. As I reached the edge, I saw him.
He lay there like something the mountain had spat out. His body was a map of bruises and open wounds, his clothes torn to rags. His skin was the color of old ash, lips cracked, eyes half-lidded. For a moment, I thought I was looking at a corpse. A man pulled from his grave and left in the cold to finish rotting.
My first instinct was panic. I bent down, hands hovering over him, unsure where to even touch. I thought of hauling him back to my home, of finding warmth, of treating the wounds before the cold took him entirely. But… when I looked at him again, I thought of the road he had taken to get here. The commitment etched in every cut, every broken edge of him. To drag him away now… it felt wrong. Like undoing whatever vow had carried him this far.
Instead, I did what I could. I unrolled a small bundle from my cart — clothes, cleaner and heavier than what he wore — and dressed him as gently as my hands would allow. I set him down on the flat stones near the edge, arranging his limbs so he would not look like a discarded body.
From my pack, I took the katros flowers I had gathered weeks earlier. Their purple petals with the white tips were said — by the old and by fools — to draw pain from the body. I did not believe they would heal him, not truly, but I placed them around him anyway. I told myself that if there was any truth in the stories, they might keep him alive until I returned.
Still, I knew it would not be enough. So I gathered a few stones and stacked them beside him, a little cairn to mark his place. It was the only promise I could leave behind.
Then I returned to my cart and began the slow descent home, each creak of the wheels carrying the weight of my unease. I thought of the medicines I still had stored away, of the food I could bring, of the extra blankets for the cold. I moved quickly — as quickly as the safe road allowed — but the hours felt longer than they should have.
When I returned, the oxen's breath steaming in the air, I saw at once that he was gone.
My first thought was that the mountain had claimed him after all. But then, from the corner of my eye, I caught movement — higher up, near the tree. The tree's black roots sprawled like veins across the ground, and there, at its base, I saw him.
He was standing. Standing — as though the battered thing I had found earlier had been nothing but a lie. His head was slightly tilted, his hand stretched out into empty air, fingers curled as though holding something. Someone.
I froze.
I knew the state I had left him in. No man could rise from that in a day, let alone walk, let alone climb towards the tree. I thought, for one strange heartbeat, that perhaps the katros flowers had worked after all. That perhaps they had drawn something back into him.
But as I watched, I felt the unease crawl deeper. He was smiling faintly, in that strange, distant way of someone speaking to a ghost. I could not see what he thought he was holding.
I raised my arm and called to him, my voice cracking. I wondered — if I knew his name, would it help? Would it cut through whatever held him?
He heard me. Slowly, he turned his head, and even as his eyes found mine, his other hand remained locked in that invisible grip. He lifted it and waved, like a man greeting a friend on the road.
I felt my throat tighten. I cupped my hands and shouted again, Come back! Please!
And then, before I could even breathe, one of the black roots surged up from the ground. It wrapped around his ankle in a single, merciless motion. He dropped, collapsing onto the earth.
I ran. My legs burned as I stumbled forward, mind stripped to nothing but panic. The ground blurred under my steps until I caught on a stone and pitched forward, the breath knocked from me. I hit hard, my palms scraping open, the world spinning.
By the time I pushed myself up, it was already too late.
The roots had him. No — them. For now I could see it: something small beside him, a shape my eyes could not quite hold. The roots wound around both, lifting them from the ground, drawing them toward the black bark. They vanished into it, swallowed whole, and then, impossibly, a flower bloomed where they had been taken.
Its petals were brilliant gold, as if lit from within. They shivered open, wider and wider, and then began to break apart, each fragment drifting upward into the dark sky. I stood there, chest heaving, the cold biting my hands and face, and watched until the last petal was gone.
There was nothing left to do but stand there, trembling, the taste of iron in my mouth. And then — cry. Cry, and hope for a thing I could not name.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------