The roots whispered louder now.
Not in words—but in pressure, in pull. In the way moss gripped her bare ankles like a mother’s hand. In the way the earth seemed to breathe beneath her every step, warm and ancient and watching. She had walked the Grove a thousand times. Knew every hollow, every stone, every hush between leaf-falls. She’d learned its silences the way others learned language.
But now, the path changed beneath her feet.
It opened.
Not outward.
Down.
Beneath the Spiral, beneath the bed of gold-veined stone where the rune had once pulsed gently against her skin, something was waiting.
Not hidden.
Held.
There had always been stories of the Deep Root. Of a place beneath names, beneath memory, where the Grove kept its last truths. But even the oldest moss-scribes refused t
