He moved a hand through the thick air and a cluster of small white blooms unfurled at his touch, releasing a scent that made Caelum's head swim with the memory of summer rain.
"How do I grow it?" Caelum asked. "Make it stronger?"
"You grow as the domain grows," the guide replied. "There are thresholds. You awaken not by chance but by evolution — changes in your essence. When your base mortal path fractures and gives way to something older and more primal, you undergo your first evolution. Each evolution expands your dominion, sharpens the edges it can claim, and grants new traits from the world you command."
"How long until that?" Caelum's voice was practical. "There's the Academy selection in weeks."
The guide's answer was a small, dry laugh. "You already run faster than many expect. Your current advancement — the cadence of life you have learned — accelerates inside this place. You will cultivate here faster than you can in the field. If you push, you can force an evolution sooner than the usual span. But the forest will not be rushed entirely. Growth demands payment."
Caelum pictured the Academy again — stone pillars, strict faces, the bright, polished corridors where boys with clean hands learned to kill with law and etiquette. He felt a flicker of hot impatience. "I will evolve before the selection," he said, not a question.
The guide's voice softened, threaded through with a curious warmth. "You are not only greedy, Last Heir — you are precise. But remember this: evolution reveals origin. Each stage peels back a veil. If you are not ready for what is beneath, you will not only be stronger — you will be more visible. Old forces notice awakenings. Dragons and angels speak less kindly to children who suddenly roar like gods."
Caelum's mouth tightened. Anger stiffened briefly — for V, for Brinet, for every slight that had festered into hunger. "Let them come."
The guide's tone turned almost fond. "Then learn the limits. Practice restraint. Your race's appetite is a gift; given to the wrong moment, it will devour its owner."
The idea lodged in him like a stone in the throat: to be powerful and disciplined, to bleed others dry and yet direct that hunger with a mind like a weapon. He was not sure whether the notion exhilarated or frightened him.
"You mentioned a difference in appearance," he said. "This place looks like—" he swept an arm at the saturated wilderness around them, "—a sanctuary. You said the domain I summon would be different."
"Yes." The guide's laugh was a soft crack. "Domains emulate the spirit within them. Yours is not made to comfort. It will be abrasive, loud, and hungry. It will grow teeth where there were leaves. It will not ask; it will demand. And because you can extract attributes from what you consume, the more potent your prey, the more your domain's features will inherit those traits. Eat a great stag and your roots will take on speed. Drink the blood of a predator and your vines might learn to strike like fangs."
A single thought, sudden and obscene, flashed through Caelum's mind — a tree's branch splitting flesh like bone. The memory of the spiders, the first handful of warm meat, rose in his mouth like bile and then like something else: power.
"So, I get stronger the more I devour," he said flatly.
The guide did not flinch. "You have always been a creature of the old bargain. The forest gives, and to take you must take. But remember the caution: the domain is not an endless resource. Even if your affinity reduces the burden, sustained use will fatigue you. A domain is more than strength — it is management."
Caelum crouched on the soft moss carpet, hands sinking into the living floor. The sensation was like being reconnected to ancestors he had never known: an electric thread that hummed through roots and back into his marrow.
"If I evolve here," he asked, voice quieter, "will I become what my race was? The last heir — will that mean I return them to the world?"
The guide's answer was slow, and heavy with something like regret. "Evolution brings you closer to origin, yes. But origin is a weathered map: some roads lead to glory, some to ruin. What you become will be shaped by your choices as much as by blood. This realm can make you a god of groves or a god of slaughter. The world will not know the difference until it meets you."
Caelum's hands curled in the moss. He felt the realm study him back — an old intelligence, curious and hungry for the song of his blood. Outside, in the real world, V would sleep until dawn and then the city would churn with lives that smelled like coins and fear. Here, everything pulsed to a slow heartbeat that belonged to roots.
"Teach me," Caelum said finally. The words were small but absolute.
The guide's voice softened into a murmur that seemed to vibrate from the trunks themselves: "Then listen. Learn the cadence of seasons hidden in a single leaf. Learn to ask without begging. Shape, do not be consumed by, your hunger. Start with the small things — the brook, the thorn, the sap. Build your ordering like a scaffold before you call the storm."
He breathed differently after that — not the quick, animal breathing of hunger, but an inhalation that matched the pulse of the inner realm.
When he emerged minutes later — from wherever the sigil had sent him — the window glass on the other side showed the city moon again. The mark on his brow glowed faintly in the silver light, not unlike the way a wound scabbed and still pulsed with life underneath.
He touched it once, fingers warm, and the guide's voice trailed off like leaves. "For now, rest. Tomorrow, we begin."
Caelum let the silence answer. He lay back on the inn bed and did not sleep as the city dreamt. Somewhere under the thin skin of the world, the forest waited — patient, enormous, hungry.