They walked for three days without seeing the sun.
The forest had no paths, only directions. Liora led. Sylvara walked last, humming an old lullaby that made the leaves lean in to listen. Kael walked in the middle, barefoot, because the elves had offered him boots and he had quietly refused. The earth felt honest under his soles; he wanted nothing between him and it yet.
On the first night they made camp beside a stream that sang in a language no human throat could shape. Ceridwen (broad-hipped, gentle-eyed) cooked thin slices of the remaining venison with mushrooms that glowed soft blue. Kael ate two mouthfuls and stopped, even though his stomach clawed for more.
Maevra noticed. She always noticed.
"You are afraid we will run out," she said. Her voice carried the rasp of someone who had once screamed battle commands across burning fields. "We will not. Eat."
Kael looked at her for a long moment, then took another slice. He ate slowly. Maevra's scarred mouth curved in something that might have been a smile.
That night he slept sitting against a tree, back straight, hands open on his knees. He did not dream. He had forgotten how.
On the second day they crossed a ridge and the land fell away into a valley so vast the far side was lost in golden haze. In the center of the valley stood the stump of what had once been a tree. Now it was a mountain. Roots thicker than rivers plunged into the earth; the flat top rose higher than clouds. Lightning crawled across its bark like affectionate cats.
"The Heartwood," Aeloria whispered, the quiet one with the emerald eyes. "What remains of our home."
Kael stared. Even from this distance he felt it: a pressure behind the eyes, a tugging at the hollow place where his heartbeat should have been louder. The stump was calling something inside him, and it hurt in a way hunger never had.
Liora rested a hand on his shoulder. Her palm was warm, calloused, steady.
"Do not fight it yet," she said. "It is only saying hello."
They descended.
On the third evening they reached a hidden dell ringed by seven standing stones older than stars. In the center stood a house grown rather than built: living oak shaped into walls, roofed with moss that breathed. Vines curled around door and window like protective arms.
Inside smelled of cedar and honey and something green that made Kael's chest ache.
Sylvara lit no fire. Instead she touched the hearth and soft white light blossomed, warm as summer noon. The others moved with practiced grace, setting out bowls, pouring pale wine that tasted of rainfall and lightning.
Kael stood in the doorway, rags dripping from the day's mist, feeling suddenly too small and too sharp-edged for this softness.
Ceridwen took his hand (her fingers swallowed his) and pulled him gently to a low bench.
"Sit, little guardian," she said, and the word guardian struck him like a mallet against bronze.
He sat.
Five pairs of ancient eyes regarded him across the glowing hearth.
Liora spoke first.
"We have not been honest with you, Kael."
"I know," he said.
They blinked.
"You have been kind," he continued, voice quiet, precise. "Kindness is rare. It usually has a price."
Maevra actually laughed, a short, surprised sound.
"Sharp cub," she muttered.
Sylvara leaned forward, moonlight hair sliding over one shoulder.
"Five hundred years ago we were the High Circle of the Verdant Throne. Guardians of the western groves. When the white hole opened, our World Tree was torn from its roots and flung across the new sky. We survived. Most did not."
Aeloria picked up the thread, voice barely above the crackle of living light.
"The Tree is dying, Kael. Not quickly. Slowly. Every day it bleeds life-mana to keep this broken world breathing. In nine hundred and ninety-seven years it will bloom one final time. When it does, every elf left alive must give themselves to the bloom, or the planet tears itself apart."
Ceridwen's hand tightened around his.
"We thought that was the end of our story."
Liora stood. She unfastened the leather cord at her throat and let her outer robe fall. Beneath it her skin was covered in glowing silver-green veins (the same pattern now faintly visible beneath Kael's own rags).
She knelt so their eyes were level.
"Then we found you," she said. "Starving. Silent. Carrying the mark no human should survive."
She took his wrist and turned it palm up. There, faint but unmistakable, silver-green lines pulsed beneath the skin like roots seeking earth.
"The Tree chose you," Liora whispered. "The only human soul it has ever chosen."
Kael looked at the marks, then at her face, then at the faces of the other four. Something cold and vast moved behind his black eyes.
"What must I do?" he asked.
Maevra answered, voice rough with old grief and older hope.
"Live long enough to become stronger than the heavens themselves. Strong enough to stand where we cannot when the final bloom comes."
Silence stretched, thick as sap.
Kael closed his fist. The glowing veins brightened for a heartbeat, then dimmed.
"I only wanted a place to belong," he said, so softly they almost missed it.
Ceridwen pulled him against her side. She smelled of earth after rain.
"You have one," she said. "Now you must keep it."
Outside, the living house creaked and settled around them like an old cat curling up to sleep.
Inside, five ancient elves and one starving human boy sat in a circle of gentle light.
And for the first time in five years, Kael let himself lean (just slightly) into the warmth beside him.
The World Tree, far away, rustled its distant leaves in approvalThey began the next morning.
No speeches. No ceremony.
Just Liora pressing a small jade cup into his hands at dawn and saying, "Drink."
The liquid inside was thick as sap and tasted of crushed pine needles, lightning, and something like tears. It burned all the way down, then bloomed behind his ribs like sunrise inside a cave. Kael's knees buckled. Maevra caught him before he hit the floor.
"Breathe through it," she muttered. "The Tree is tasting you back."
He breathed.
The pain sharpened, became a white-hot wire threading every vein. For one terrifying moment he felt the planet itself inhale (felt continents shift, oceans slosh, the World Tree's roots flex like fingers beneath the crust).
Then the wire snapped.
The pain vanished.
And something ancient and vast opened one slow eye inside his chest.
He opened his own eyes to find all five elves staring at him with something between fear and reverence.
Silver-green lines now glowed brightly under his skin that had been corpse-pale an hour ago. They looked like living circuitry, like roots seeking soil.
"Rank 0, Star 1," Sylvara announced, voice hushed. "Faster than any of us ever managed."
Kael looked down at his hands. They were still thin, still scarred, but the tremor that had lived in them for five years was gone.
Liora exhaled shakily. "Come."
They took him outside.
The dell had changed overnight. Seven standing stones now leaned inward, forming a perfect circle. Between them the grass had withered into a spiral of bare earth. At its center waited a single root (thick as Kael's torso), rising from the ground like a pale serpent. It pulsed gently, as if breathing.
"The Heartwood's gift," Ceridwen said. "A direct taproot. Most elves wait centuries for one. The Tree gave it to you before you even asked."
Kael stared at the root. It stared back.
Aeloria spoke for the first time in days. "Sit. Place your hands on it. Let it teach you what we no longer have time to."
He obeyed.
The moment his palms touched the bark, the world vanished.
He stood in darkness that smelled of rain and deep time. Roots thicker than mountains surrounded him, glowing with soft emerald fire. Somewhere far above, leaves rustled in a wind he could not feel.
A voice (not sound, but pressure inside his skull) spoke.
Child of no grove, child of ruin.
You carry my wound.
Will you carry my weight?
Images flooded him:
- Elves burning themselves to ash to hold a continent together.
- A sky cracked open like an egg, white fire pouring through.
- A single silver seed the size of a moon, waiting beneath the Heartwood, waiting for blood and surrender.
Kael did not flinch.
"I will," he said aloud, though his body was far away.
The root tightened around his wrists like a promise.
Then it began to pour.
Life-mana (raw, wild, older than stars) surged into him in a green flood. His bones sang. His heart stuttered, stopped, restarted stronger. The hollow place inside him filled and overflowed.
He felt every tree on the swollen Earth at once.
He felt the planet's fevered dreams.
He felt the countdown ticking inside the World Tree's heart: nine hundred ninety-six years, three hundred sixty-four days, eleven hours.
When he opened his eyes again, the sun was setting.
He was still sitting in the circle. The root had retreated into the earth, leaving only a faint scar shaped like a leaf on each palm.
The elves knelt around him, faces wet.
"Rank 0, Star 7," Sylvara whispered. "One day. One single day."
Kael stood. His rags hung looser now, but his spine was straight as a spear.
"I'm still hungry," he said calmly.
Maevra barked a laugh that sounded suspiciously like a sob.
Ceridwen was already moving toward the house. "Dinner, then. And tomorrow we hunt something bigger."
Liora lingered. She brushed a thumb across the new leaf-scars on his palms, eyes fierce and tender all at once.
"You asked for a home," she said. "The Tree just made you its doorway. There is no leaving now."
Kael looked past her to the darkening sky where the Heartwood's distant crown scraped the stars.
"Good," he said.
And for the first time in his life, the hunger inside him was not for food.
It was for time
Time enough to grow strong enough that no one he loved would ever have to burn again