They came not as an army.
Not as pilgrims.
Not as heroes.
They came as witnesses.
The root-tenders felt it first.
The pulse beneath their feet, steady as blood but older than memory.
Their tools fell from their hands. Their voices hushed mid-prayer.
Moss climbed their ankles unbidden. Not to bind—but to call.
Across the hollowed thresholds of the Grove, breath stilled.
The moss-scribes dropped their quills. Glyphs inked in ancient green shivered on the bark-boards they held. One line split down the center—an old symbol long outlawed. The Sign of Becoming. The mark he had carved into the door of the Cradle when no one else dared. The sign he had worn in defiance, before the Grove had swallowed him whole.
And now?
It glowed.
Above, the trees leaned inward.
The Spiral opened.
Sh
