AS YOU SOW, SO YOU REAP

chapter 27: the root above

The green glow sputtered like a dying flame, then surged brighter, flooding the cavern with a sickly light.

Aric’s instincts screamed at him to move.

The walls were no longer still — they shifted, bulging and rippling like muscle beneath skin. Thick roots, glistening as if wet, began to slither out from fissures in the rock.

“Go!” Lysara hissed, her voice sharp for the first time. “It’s pulling you in!”

Aric stumbled back, but the floor was no safer. Hair-thin tendrils writhed across the ground, reaching for his boots. He grabbed the nearest rock and smashed at them, but each blow only seemed to make them twitch faster.

“Tell me more about starving it!” he shouted over the echoing groan that filled the Hollow.

Lysara’s voice was already fading, as though the roots themselves were muffling her words. “Find the seed of light… the seed that has never known sorrow…”

“What does that even mean?”

But she was gone — not in the way someone walks out of sight, but as if the roots had simply swallowed her voice.

The tendrils whipped higher, coiling around his legs. Aric pulled his knife and slashed, but each cut released a foul-smelling sap that stung his skin. He had to leave — now.

He sprinted toward the narrow passage he had entered through, the ceiling so low he had to crouch. The roots followed, scraping against stone, some moving faster than he could.

Halfway up the tunnel, a root thicker than his arm burst through the wall in front of him, blocking the way. It pulsed like a living artery, thudding in rhythm with his heartbeat.

For a moment, he froze. Then he noticed it — carved into the root’s bark-like skin was a faint pattern. Not random. Words.

The letters were jagged, but he could read them:

“ALL THAT IS SOWN RETURNS.”

He didn’t have time to think. The smaller roots were closing in from behind. With a snarl, he stabbed the thick root where the words were carved. It convulsed violently, the whole tunnel shaking, and then split open like rotten wood.

A gush of dirt and cold air poured through the gap.

Without hesitation, Aric shoved himself through the opening and tumbled into another cavern — smaller, but with walls glittering like they were studded with shards of crystal. The glow here was softer, less sickly.

Somewhere ahead, faint and almost drowned by the echo of dripping water, he heard his father’s voice again.

“Aric…”

It was weak, but it was enough.

Aric tightened his grip on the knife. “Hold on, Dad. I’m coming.”

The roots were already writhing through the hole behind him. This new cavern might be safer — or it might be just another mouth waiting to close.

Either way, he couldn’t stop now.