AS YOU SOW, SO YOU REAP

chapter 14: whisper beneath the soil

The wind outside had shifted. Dharan could hear it in the way the barn’s wooden panels groaned—long, slow creaks that felt less like weather and more like breath.

He stood near the open loft window, lantern in hand, watching the moonless night swallow the fields. Even from here, he could feel the subtle throb of the Heartseed deep under the soil, like the land itself was alive and waiting.

Aric sat cross-legged on the hay bales, running his fingers over the carved talisman Elder Bran had given him. The boy’s eyes were distant.

“You’re quiet tonight,” Dharan said, forcing a note of calm into his voice.

“I keep hearing them,” Aric murmured without looking up. “Not the ones outside. The ones underground.”

Dharan frowned. “What do you mean?”

“They’re talking. Not in words—more like… feelings. Images. Sometimes it’s a voice like mine, but older. Sometimes it’s just this hunger.” Aric’s grip on the talisman tightened. “And it’s getting louder.”

Dharan felt a cold thread wind through his chest. He’d seen this before—on the faces of other farmers who’d been too long near corrupted fields. But those men were grown, with decades of toil and hardship. For the soil to reach this deep into Aric already… that was new.

He stepped forward, crouching so he could look Aric in the eye. “We’re going to find a way to stop it before it takes root in you. You hear me?”

Aric gave a small nod, but Dharan wasn’t convinced.

From below, a soft knock sounded against the barn door.

Dharan froze. Three knocks. A pause. Two more. The same signal used in the old days by neighbors who came after dark, when they didn’t want to be seen.

He exchanged a glance with Aric. Then, gripping the pitchfork, he went down and slid the door open just enough to see.

A figure stood there, wrapped in a heavy coat, the hood shadowing their face. Mud streaked their trousers and boots, and something in the way they leaned on the frame told Dharan they were half-dead from exhaustion.

“Let me in,” the stranger whispered hoarsely.

Dharan hesitated—then pulled the door wide enough for them to slip through. The figure stumbled forward, pulling back the hood.

It was Mira, one of the farmhands from the neighboring Tilson place. But she looked nothing like the bright-eyed girl Dharan remembered. Her skin was pale, her lips cracked, and her eyes darted to every shadow as though expecting them to come alive.

“They’ve taken the Tilsons,” she said in a rush, gripping Dharan’s arm. “All of them. Mr. Tilson, the boys, even the dogs. The roots came up through the floors. They dragged them under.”

Dharan’s stomach turned. “When?”

“Tonight. Just after sundown.” She swallowed hard, then glanced toward the loft. “The boy—your boy—isn’t safe here. They’ve marked him. I saw his face in the field before I came.”

Aric’s voice floated down from above. “She’s telling the truth.”

Both adults looked up at him.

“I saw it too,” Aric said, standing now, talisman in hand. “It was like a reflection, but in the wheat. It was smiling at me.”

Dharan felt a tremor pass through the barn floor, subtle but certain. The kind that meant something beneath them was moving.

Mira took a shaky breath. “We can’t stay here. There’s a place—the old root cellar at the Miller farm. Bran and some others are hiding there. They’ve got charms and salt lines. It’s holding for now.”

Dharan glanced toward the dark fields, then back at her. “If we move, they’ll see us.”

“They already know where we are,” she said, and for the first time, Dharan noticed the faint black tendrils curling just under the skin at her wrist.

“Gods help us,” he muttered.

The decision was made for them when the barn wall near the east side groaned and split. Thick, slick roots pushed through the gaps, reaching like fingers. The lantern light caught their wet sheen as they coiled toward the hay bales.

Aric scrambled down from the loft. Dharan grabbed the rope and talisman, shoving them into the boy’s hands. “Hold on to these and don’t let go. No matter what happens.”

Mira was already at the back door, throwing it open to the cold night. “We go now!”

They plunged into the wheat, the stalks closing around them. Dharan could feel the soil shifting beneath his boots, hear the faint whispering Aric had spoken of—only now, it was clear enough that even Dharan could make out the words.

Come back… feed the roots… the harvest is ready…

They didn’t slow until the barn was a dim shadow behind them. Somewhere ahead, a flicker of orange light broke the darkness—the Miller farm’s cellar entrance.

“Almost there,” Mira gasped.

But the moment they stepped into the clearing, Dharan knew something was wrong. The air here was thicker, the ground damp as if it had been crying sap instead of rain. And the light… it wasn’t from a lantern.

It was from dozens of tiny red glows—eyes—watching them from the ground itself.