The morning broke gently in Carfein. Aria woke not to cold or footsteps this time, but to a thin shaft of golden light slipping through the narrow window high above her cell. It touched the stone floor like a ribbon and warmed the dust motes drifting lazily in the air.
For the first time since her arrival, the silence of the prison felt less suffocating. She stretched stiffly on the cot, lifting her face to the light, pretending for a moment that it might belong to some morning on earth. To her guardian's tiny kitchen, to the worn oak table where bread and fruit had once awaited her. But the illusion cracked too quickly, leaving only the stale scent of stone and the heavy quiet of a kingdom she did not belong to.
Her stomach clenched in hunger, but before she could dwell on it, the footsteps came again. Always the same pace, the same rhythm, as though he moved to the steady beat of his own mind.
Lirien appeared in the corridor, his pale hair catching the thread of sunlight. His gaze rested on her with that unreadable calm that made her skin prickle. Today, however, his arms were not empty. Another bundle of parchment lay pressed against his side, bound in dark twine.
"You've slept," he said simply, as though reporting an observation. He crouched to slide the papers between the bars. His voice softened, yet carried no warmth. "It is time again. The words wait for no one."
Aria took the parchments reluctantly, her fingers brushing the rough edges. When she looked up to meet his gaze, he was already turning, robes trailing after him like mist. His steps echoed until the silence swallowed him whole.
She laid the bundle across her knees, tugging the twine loose. Dust rose as she parted the pages, and the ink met her eyes—sharp, deliberate, filled with the weight of obsession. She braced herself, then began to read.
---
The smoke curled in blue spirals above the firepit as the Amoths gathered. Their faces were painted in white clay, their chests bare but marked with sigils in ash. They sang low, voices weaving like a river's current, rising and falling in tides I could not follow. The air quivered with rhythm, as though even the earth beneath us strained to listen.
Yougen stood beside me, still so young then, his smile eager, his hands restless. "This is their binding song," he whispered, his voice trembling with excitement. "They call to the roots."
I asked him, "Do you believe it answers?"
He grinned, that same open grin he carried into every danger. "Why would it not? Everything that lives answers, if you speak in the right way."
The ritual lasted through the night. They poured wine dark as blood into the soil, scattered seeds that shimmered faintly under moonlight, and with every chant they stamped their feet in unison until the ground itself seemed to thrum. I thought it childish. Yet when the dawn came, there was growth where no seed had been.
A single green sprout, thin as a thread of hair, had pierced the earth.
Yougen knelt before it, reverent. "Do you see?" he whispered. "It listens."
I said nothing then. My heart was heavy with questions, with possibilities that gnawed at me. If they could coax a sprout with voice and sacrifice, then why not more? Why not another tree, one to rival even the great one in Carfein?
Their ritual ended in joy, but my thoughts did not rest. The Amoths sang and danced, children laughing, women weaving garlands for their hair. They believed they had spoken with life itself. I believed I had seen the first step toward surpassing it.
That day I swore an oath in silence: if the Tree waned, I would not kneel to its death. I would make another. I would bend the land until it answered me, until roots cracked stone and veins of sap rose where I commanded.
But such creation would not come from song and wine alone. It would demand sacrifice greater than any they dared offer. Flesh. Blood. Perhaps even soul.
Yougen laughed beside the fire, tossing bread to the children who chased him. He did not see the shadows in my eyes. He did not hear the promise I made to myself:
There will be another Tree. And its roots will obey me.
---
Aria's hands trembled as she lowered the page. The words left a chill crawling up her arms despite the thin warmth of sunlight in the cell. This was not a child's fear, not mere cruelty. It was ambition carved deep enough to break worlds.
A sharp clang broke her trance. The door scraped open and Lirien returned, silent but expectant.
"Well?" he asked. His gaze flickered to the parchments, then to her face. "What did you find?"
Aria swallowed. "It wasn't only about… experiments. It was about the Amoths. They had rituals—songs, dances, offerings. He wrote of a sprout that grew from nothing, after a night of worship."
Lirien tilted his head, interest sparking faintly in his otherwise cold expression. "And?"
Her voice faltered. "He… he spoke of creating another Tree. Forcing the land to give birth to it. He wanted to—" She cut herself off, afraid to repeat the rest.
But Lirien's eyes narrowed, catching every detail she had left unsaid. "To command it. To replace the one we worship."
Aria hugged the parchment to her chest as though it could shield her. "Yes."
Silence stretched. Then, without another word, Lirien turned on his heel and left, robes whispering across the floor. The door clanged shut, and his footsteps faded into the distance.
Aria sat alone, the words still echoing in her ears. She felt hollow, as though the parchment had carved out more of her than she had to give.
Hours passed. She could not tell how many. She drifted to the balcony when the guards permitted her out, drawn by air and sky.
The sun was sinking, bathing Carfein in molten hues. Towers gleamed like spears of bronze, and the great Tree at the city's heart pulsed with pale, otherworldly light. Its glow painted the clouds in shades of silver and blue, so unlike any sky she had known on earth.
From her height, she saw Quarties moving like currents below—children chasing each other in the courtyards, guards patrolling with disciplined precision, merchants folding their stalls. Life, thriving beneath a Tree that hummed softly against the evening air.
Aria gripped the railing of the balcony, breath catching in her chest. She had never seen anything so beautiful and so terrifying all at once.
The parchments weighed heavy in her hands. She thought of the sprout born in the Amoths' ritual, of the ambition to birth another Tree, of roots tearing through stone by command. The sky darkened slowly, but her thoughts grew heavier still, tangled like vines that would not loosen.
And yet, despite everything, her eyes could not leave the glow of the Tree at the heart of Carfein.