AS YOU SOW, SO YOU REAP

chapter 16: into the deep field

The night was so black it seemed to drink the lantern light.

Dharan held the lamp low, its small flame flickering against the heavy mist curling along the ground. The air here was different—thick, heavy, clinging to his skin like damp cloth.

Behind him, Aric’s breathing was quick, but steady. Maelis walked ahead, her staff glowing faintly green, each step careful as though the soil might bite.

“This is the last edge of safe ground,” Maelis whispered. “Once we cross the ridge, we’re in the deep field. Nothing there will let you leave alive without a fight.”

Dharan gripped his pitchfork tighter. “Then we don’t give it the chance.”

They climbed the low ridge, boots sinking into damp earth, and then Dharan saw it—an ocean of blackened wheat stretching as far as the eye could see, each stalk swaying in a wind that wasn’t there. The distant tower of root they’d seen earlier loomed faintly against the horizon, pulsing with a crimson light.

The whispers began again.

Soft, almost coaxing. Come. Rest. Feed the earth.

Aric shook his head sharply. “It’s in my thoughts again.”

Maelis muttered a sharp word and tapped his forehead with the tip of her staff. “Stay behind me. Don’t answer it—ever. It hears through your thoughts as much as your voice.”

They moved into the wheat. The stalks were tall—taller than Dharan’s head—and as they brushed against them, he felt the subtle give of something living, something warm. More than once, a stalk seemed to twitch toward him, its grain head bending unnaturally close before Maelis swatted it away with a flash of green light.

Half an hour into their slow march, they heard it: a deep, rhythmic thud, like footsteps. At first far away… but getting closer.

Maelis stopped. “Guardians.”

Dharan tensed. “What are they?”

“Rootwell’s hands,” she said. “Shaped from the bodies it’s claimed. They keep the field safe—and feed it when they can.”

The sound grew louder, joined by a wet dragging noise. Dharan crouched, signaling Aric to do the same. Through a gap in the wheat, he saw movement—three massive shapes trudging along a narrow path between the stalks.

At first, they looked like men in ragged cloaks, but as they drew nearer, Dharan saw their true forms. Their limbs were too long, their joints bent backward, and their faces were featureless save for wide, root-lined mouths. Their skin—if it could be called that—was bark and bone fused together, pulsing with red light.

One of them stopped suddenly, head tilting toward their hiding place. Dharan held his breath.

The creature sniffed the air, its mouth opening in a slow, unnatural grin. Long strands of root slithered from between its teeth, writhing toward the ground.

Maelis flicked her fingers, and a faint burst of green light shimmered in the air. The creature froze, its head jerking toward the glow. With a deep, guttural noise, it turned and moved away, following the false trail.

Only when the sound faded did Dharan breathe again.

“We can’t keep avoiding them forever,” Maelis said softly. “The closer we get to the Rootwell, the more there will be.”

They pressed on, deeper into the field. The air grew warmer, heavier, the soil beneath their boots turning soft and damp, sometimes squelching as though they stepped on flesh instead of earth.

Then they heard something else—a faint, high-pitched sound, almost like singing.

Aric frowned. “Do you hear that?”

“Yes,” Maelis said, her voice low. “And you must not follow it.”

But the sound grew clearer with every step, threading through the whispers until it was almost beautiful. Dharan felt a strange pull in his chest, an ache like longing for something lost.

Before he realized it, Aric had stepped ahead of them, pushing through the wheat toward the sound.

“Aric!” Dharan hissed, grabbing for him.

The boy didn’t turn.

When Dharan caught up, the wheat opened into a small clearing—and there she was. Mara again. His Mara. She sat on a stone in the center, her hair loose, her eyes gentle, humming that haunting tune.

“Dharan,” she whispered, smiling softly. “It’s been so long. Come to me.”

He took a step forward before Maelis’s voice snapped like a whip: “It’s not her!”

The illusion flickered, and Mara’s face melted into something pale and root-veined, its smile stretching too wide. Dharan recoiled just as the ground beneath Mara cracked open.

A black root lashed upward, wrapping around Aric’s leg. The boy cried out as he was yanked toward the fissure.

Dharan lunged, stabbing the pitchfork into the root. It shrieked—a sound that vibrated through his bones—but didn’t let go.

Maelis slammed her staff into the ground. A green shockwave burst outward, severing the root in a spray of dark sap. Aric stumbled back, and Dharan caught him, pulling him away as the false Mara dissolved into black smoke.

Maelis’s face was pale. “That was a lure. They’re getting desperate to slow us down.”

Dharan glanced toward the horizon. The Rootwell’s crimson pulse seemed faster now, almost eager.

They were getting close.

Too close for the field’s comfort.