The village did not greet the news with relief.
When the Wardens returned from the depths with Lirion, word spread quickly. Whispers moved faster than footsteps along the platforms and bridges. Faces turned away. Hands tightened around tools never meant to be weapons. Fear settled into the wood itself, thick and unspoken.
Lirion stood at the center platform as the Wardens gathered the villagers. The massive trunk rose behind him, silent and watchful. Above, the canopy creaked softly, branches shifting as if adjusting to an unseen weight.
"The Heart weakens," the Warden woman announced. "The bindings will not hold forever."
Murmurs erupted immediately.
"We have heard this before," an older man shouted. "Every generation says the same thing."
"And yet every generation tightens the seal further," Lirion said, his voice carrying easily across the platform. The villagers fell silent, startled by the calm authority in his tone. "You have mistaken survival for stagnation."
Some glared at him. Others looked uncertain. A few listened.
"You live because the tree protects you," he continued. "But protection is not the same as safety. When the balance breaks, hiding will not save you."
A woman stepped forward, clutching a child close to her chest. "Then what do you want from us? To abandon our home? To climb down into the forest and die?"
"No," Lirion replied. "I want you to learn how to live without chains."
The words stirred something uneasy in the crowd.
The Wardens began dividing the villagers into groups. Those willing to learn. Those unwilling but afraid. Those who refused entirely. Lirion watched carefully, committing faces to memory. Fear took many forms, but resignation was the most dangerous.
Training began before the sun reached its peak.
Lirion started with movement, not weapons. Balance on narrow beams. Controlled breathing at height. Awareness of surroundings. Mortals broke easily when they panicked, and panic was learned behavior. So was discipline.
A young man slipped and froze halfway across a beam, muscles locked, breath shallow. Lirion stepped onto the beam beside him with practiced ease.
"Do not look down," Lirion said quietly. "Look at me."
The man's eyes met his, wide and trembling.
"You are still alive," Lirion continued. "That is not an accident. It is a choice you keep making. Now take another step."
The man obeyed.
Others watched. Some scoffed. Some tried. Some failed and had to be hauled back onto platforms, shaken and humiliated but alive.
By midday, resentment surfaced.
"You push them too hard," one of the Wardens snapped. "They are not soldiers."
"They are prey," Lirion replied evenly. "Pretending otherwise will not spare them."
That night, Lirion sat alone near the edge of the village, staring into the vast drop below. The forest floor was invisible, swallowed by mist and shadow. Somewhere deep within the tree, the Heart pulsed faintly, its rhythm uneven but present.
He felt the weight of watching mortals struggle. Their fear. Their anger. Their stubborn hope.
Long ago, he had judged such beings weak.
Now he watched them try to stand despite knowing they would fall.
A quiet voice stirred at the edge of his awareness, distant but familiar. Not the god of the void. Something else.
The tree was listening.
And for the first time, Lirion wondered whether this world might change him more than he could change it.
The following days stripped the illusion of stability from the village.
Fatigue crept into every movement. Hands blistered from gripping ropes and crude weapons. Arguments flared over food, over duties, over whether Lirion's presence had cursed them rather than saved them. The tree groaned more often now, its vast body shifting under stresses no one could see.
Lirion watched it all with a measured calm.
He pushed harder.
Training expanded beyond balance and movement. Spears fashioned from hardened branches were distributed. Slings, simple bows, and hooked blades designed for fighting among roots and platforms. He did not teach them to win. He taught them not to freeze.
One evening, a boy no older than sixteen dropped his weapon during a sparring drill and backed away, shaking.
"I can't," the boy said, voice breaking. "If they come, I will die anyway."
Lirion stopped the drill. Silence spread as villagers turned to watch.
"You will die anyway," Lirion said, his voice level. "Everyone here will. The question is when and whether your death buys time for others."
The words cut deep. The boy stared at him in shock, then anger.
"That is easy for you to say," the boy snapped. "You are not one of us."
Lirion stepped closer, close enough that the boy had to look up at him. "You are right. I am not. That is why I will stand in front when it matters. But I will not let you hide behind me."
The boy's hands trembled as he picked up the spear again.
That night, the first dissent took shape.
A group gathered in the upper platforms, voices low but urgent. Lirion listened from a distance. They spoke of leaving the village, of cutting bridges, of sealing the deeper paths and trusting the old bindings to hold. Fear twisted into defiance.
The Wardens confronted them before dawn. Harsh words followed. Accusations of cowardice and betrayal echoed through the wood.
Lirion intervened only once.
"If you leave," he said, stepping between the groups, "you will face the forest unprepared. If you stay and refuse to adapt, you will face what comes from above and below. Neither path is safe. Choose with open eyes."
Some left that morning.
Lirion watched them descend along ancient vines, their figures vanishing into the mist. He did not stop them. Survival was not obedience.
That afternoon, the heart surged.
A shock ran through the tree, violent enough to throw villagers from their feet. A deep sound rolled through the canopy, no longer restrained, no longer subtle. Panic erupted instantly.
From the upper reaches, shadows moved. Shapes detached from branches, their forms half bark and half flesh, limbs too long, movements wrong. The first creature dropped onto a platform with a sound like splitting wood.
Someone screamed.
Lirion moved.
He crossed the platform in a blur, seizing a fallen spear and driving it into the creature's chest. The weapon cracked, but the impact forced the thing back. It shrieked, a sound like tearing leaves and wet bone.
More followed.
The villagers froze. Some fled. Others raised weapons with shaking hands.
"Hold the line," Lirion shouted. "Do not let them isolate you."
A creature lunged at him, claws raking across his side. Pain flared, sharp and immediate. He grunted but stayed upright, twisting and driving a blade into its neck. Sap and dark ichor spilled onto the wood.
Mortality burned through him, reminding him of limits he could not ignore.
Still, he stood.
The Wardens rallied around him, forming a defensive ring. For the first time, villagers fought beside them, clumsy but desperate.
The Heart pulsed wildly, its rhythm broken.
This was not the collapse.
It was a test.
And Arborys was watching to see whether its people would break or learn to endure.
The attack lasted less than an hour, but its aftermath stretched far longer.
Broken platforms hung at awkward angles, and ropes frayed and snapped. Blood and dark sap stained the wood, mingling in patterns no one wanted to look at for too long. The creatures lay still, their forms slowly hardening, bark overtaking flesh until they became little more than twisted growths fused to the platforms.
The villagers moved among the wreckage in silence.
Some tended to the wounded. Others stared into the distance, faces hollow, as if still waiting for the next wave. A few wept openly, grief and terror finally breaking through restraint.
Lirion sat near the edge of the central platform, one hand pressed against his side. The wound burned, deep but not fatal. He focused on steady breathing, forcing his body to recover. Pain anchored him firmly in the present.
A Warden knelt beside him. "You should rest."
"I will," Lirion said. "After I know how many are dead."
The Warden hesitated. "Three."
Lirion closed his eyes briefly. Three lives. Three threads cut short. The number was small by the standards of war, insignificant by the standards of a god.
Here, it was everything.
"They fought," the Warden added. "Some of them. More than I expected."
"As did you," Lirion replied. "That matters."
Later, as night fell, the village gathered again. No speeches were made. No victories declared. Fires burned low, casting flickering light across weary faces.
One of the villagers approached Lirion, an older woman with scarred hands and steady eyes. She bowed her head slightly.
"You were right," she said. "Fear did not save us."
Lirion met her gaze. "Fear warns. It does not protect."
She nodded. "Then teach us more."
The words carried weight. Not hope. Resolve.
Deep within the tree, the Heart responded.
Its pulse slowed, just slightly. The oppressive pressure eased, replaced by a faint warmth that spread through the trunk. Lirion felt it immediately, a subtle shift in the balance.
It was not gratitude.
It was recognition.
That night, Lirion dreamed.
He stood in a vast expanse of pale ash under a fractured sky. Worlds burned in the distance, collapsing into themselves. He felt no regret in the dream, only certainty.
Then faces appeared. Mortal faces. The villagers. The boy who had almost frozen on the beam. The woman clutching her child. Their expressions were not accusing.
They were afraid.
Lirion woke abruptly, breath ragged, heart racing. For a moment, he did not know where he was.
Then the scent of sap and smoke grounded him.
He sat up slowly, staring at his hands.
This was the cruelty of his punishment. Not the deaths. Not the endless cycles.
It was remembering why he once thought such lives expendable.
And feeling that belief rot inside him.
Above, the canopy creaked. Far above, something shifted, watching.
The trial of Arborys had only begun.