Chapter 44: Ashenroot's Secret
The glyphs pulsed one final time before dimming, plunging the mural back into eerie silence. The name Ashenroot lingered in the air, thick with dread and mystery.
Veyla stepped back, her brows furrowed.
"I… didn't know the mural would show that symbol," she whispered. "Ashenroot was only a legend, even among us Keepers. A forbidden Seed… one that never bloomed."
Rei scoffed lightly. "A Seed that never bloomed? That doesn't sound so dangerous."
But Riku didn't laugh. The pendant at his chest had gone cold.
"It means it never reached its final stage," Riku said. "It stayed in between—alive, but twisted. Maybe that's why the mural called it a 'refusal.'"
Airi nodded slowly. "If a Bloom is a reflection of the heart… then what happens when the heart denies itself?"
The silence that followed chilled them more than the air.
---
Later, around a fire in Nemeton's outer circle
They had set up camp just beyond the petrified grove. Toma was sharpening his blade on a stone, Kaoru quietly scribbled notes in a small leather-bound book, and Sera prepared tea for everyone.
But Riku stared into the fire.
"Do you think we're still meant to chase the Seeds?" he asked quietly, not looking at anyone.
Airi sat beside him. "Not just to grow stronger… but to understand what they really are."
"The Garden gave us a vision," Riku said. "But Ashenroot—it didn't feel like the others. It wasn't just powerful. It felt like something broken… alive and angry."
Veyla approached, wrapping herself in a long shawl of mossy green.
"Ashenroot was said to be the First Rejection," she said, voice low. "Before the Age of Bloom truly began. A soul who could not reconcile what they became. A Seedling who turned against the roots."
Kaoru looked up. "Wait. Are you saying Ashenroot was a person?"
"No," she said. "I'm saying it might still be."
---
Midnight
Riku couldn't sleep.
He wandered away from the camp, following the pull of his pendant. It glowed faintly now, as if sensing something nearby.
As he passed one of the petrified trees, he felt it again—a whisper. A shiver up his spine.
Then, a faint hum.
He turned a corner and gasped.
Buried deep in the bark of one of the stone trees was a sigil—glowing—with the same mark from the mural. A cracked bloom.
He touched it.
Suddenly, time slowed.
His vision blurred, and in the blink of an eye, he stood in a field of ash.
Charred trees. A sky of dull gray. In the center stood a woman cloaked in black vines, her back turned to him.
"Who… are you?" Riku asked.
She didn't turn. Her voice was soft, like wind through leaves.
"Not your enemy, Bloom King. But not your ally either."
"The Ashenroot?" he asked.
She was silent for a moment. Then nodded.
"I once bloomed for hope. But what they made me do… what I became… I could not forgive."
Riku's chest tightened. "Why show yourself to me?"
"Because the others fear truth. But you… you carry both light and shadow."
Suddenly, the ash around him began to swirl, and her voice grew sharper.
"When the Seeds betray you… when power demands sacrifice… will you still call it a gift?"
Riku opened his mouth, but everything shattered like glass—
And he was back in the grove, panting.
---
Back at camp
He didn't tell the others what he saw. Not yet.
But he did whisper her final words to himself:
"When power demands sacrifice… will you still call it a gift?"
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