BOUND BENEATH ROOTS AND SOUL

Chapter 8

Embers POV

I woke up feeling like my brain had been through a blender. My eyes snapped open, but for a long second, I had no idea where the hell I was. I lay there in the heavy quiet of the tree-house, my pulse thudding a frantic rhythm against my eardrums. I was frazzled, my memory clawing for something—a place, a sound, a specific feeling—but it was like trying to catch smoke with my bare hands. Everything felt foggy, like I was swimming through molasses just to reach the surface of consciousness. I stayed under the covers for a long time, blinking at the ceiling, trying to shake off a lingering sensation of cold air on my face and a memory that kept slipping through my fingers like water. It was something about a lake, a voice like grinding stones, and a pair of eyes that had watched me from the edge of the square.

In my confusion, I finally rolled out of bed. My limbs felt sluggish and my head was spinning as I made my way down the winding stairs. I just wanted to find Elara, grab some water, and maybe get some of that waking-up tea they brewed. I needed to understand why the hell I felt like I hadn't slept at all. It was quite unusual because I've been having the best sleep of my life, this past few days.

As I reached the bottom step, the smell in the room hit me, the scent of fresh bread and tea. Elara and Ashthorne were already there, sitting by the low table. They both raised their faces to greet me, but the words died in their throats. They stopped dead, staring at me like I had suddenly grown another head.

Well, in fact, I basically had.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the polished surface of a metal plate on the wall and almost shrieked. I looked like I’d been dragged through a hedge backward and then rolled in the dirt for good measure.

There were actual leaves and small, jagged branches stuck to my hair at all angles. The hem of my garment was a total disaster—caked in dark, damp soil and tangled with dried, broken twigs. I didn’t just look like I’d slept poorly; I looked like I had spent the entire night crawling through the thickest undergrowth of an old, neglected park or a forgotten garden.

The silence in the room was deafening. As the initial shock wore off and they settled into a deeper confusion, Elara turned her head sharply toward Ashthorne.

"DID YOU DO THIS?" she hissed, her voice trembling with a mix of accusation and confusion.

Ashthorne immediately raised his hands in total surrender. In that moment, he didn't look like the cool, brooding guardian I had known him to be. With his eyes wide and his shoulders hunched, he looked more like Elara’s scolded child than the siblings I’d thought they were. The sight of him looking so genuinely flustered was the break I needed; it was so absurd that the bubble of tension in my chest just popped.

I burst out laughing. It was a loud, jagged sound that filled the room. "Guys, relax," I wheezed, picking a yellowed leaf out of my hair. "We are literally living in a freaking tree. Nature happens. I probably just rolled off the bed and into a corner."

I chalked it up to the house itself, but there were two things I consciously or unconsciously decided to ignore. One was the deep, heavy soreness in my legs—a dull ache that felt like I’ve walked miles, not just rolled over. The second was the look on Elara’s face. She wasn't laughing. She looked like she was seeing death written in the mud on my hem. She sat there terrified, her eyes darting toward the door and back to me, her hands trembling slightly where they gripped her skirts.

We had breakfast in almost complete silence, which was a jarring change from the last few days and the elegant lovely clatter i had grown accustomed too at breakfast. "Yeah suck on it aunt Cheryl I'm a classy person" Usually, there was a bit of chatter, a bit of warmth, but today the air was heavy.

After we had finished, Elara suggested—sweetly. Though I could tell she was just trying to find a way to be alone—that Ashthorne should show me around the forest. He seemed to realize she needed space to process whatever was spiraling in her head, so he stepped forward, his presence calming the air just a little.

As we stepped outside, I paused on the path. The soft moss cushioned my sore feet, and I just laughed to myself. It hit me then—just a week ago, I was back home, crying into a bottle of cheap wine over a guy who couldn't even remember my birthday. My heart had been smashed into a million pieces, and yet, here I was. In a world of glass cobblestones and dancing Fae.

And so, I found myself walking into the deep woods with the handsome hottie that was Ashthorne.

Since they lived on the outskirts of Springtown, the wilderness swallowed us up almost immediately. The light shining through the trees in this imperfectly natural way. I kept stealing glances at him as we moved—his profile was like a god you know, like...he looked like something carved out of stone, sharp, perfect and pretty. And although there were a hundred questions I wanted to ask, but the subjects were things I didn't know how to broach. I didn't have the words for the "sickness" they whispered about, or why I felt so strange in my own skin.

I realized then that he was also staring at me. He had this massive question in his eyes, his gaze tracking me as if he were asking why I was staring at him in the first place.

I had chosen not to dwell on the sad facts of my old...well other life; instead, I focused on the forest, the golden slats of light, the cathedral-like canopy, and the sheer, impossible beauty of it all.

The rhythm of the marketplace from yesterday stayed in my blood. I started humming that song the musician with the lute-harp had played, the melody so clear in my mind that I didn't even realize I was doing it. I started to sway and twirl, my arms lifting as I danced in the dirt. I was trying to recreate that feeling of being seen in the square, that moment where I felt light and exactly where I was supposed to be.

We walked for hours—i think...maybe four. I honestly didn't even notice the trek because it was such a pleasant experience. Watching Ashthorne move was like watching a light footed cat at work; as the Guardian, he didn't just walk through the trees, he moved with them. It was a perfect, lovely comfortable, easy silence.

And then like all good things, the air changed.

We were deeper into the woods than I had even realized, a place where the shadows seemed a tad bit thicker. Ashthorne stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes narrowed, his body tensing like a bowstring. Whatever he saw or felt, it was enough to shatter the morning peace in an instant.

Suddenly, Ashthorne reached out and grabbed my hand. He didn't say a word, but he started running with such force it nearly pulled my arm out of its socket. He was moving with an alarming, frantic energy, as if we were escaping something right on our heels. We tore through the undergrowth, branches whipping past us like lashes. For the nth time since I’d arrived, I felt another real, sharp spike of fear—cold and biting. This wasn't just a jog or a brisk pace. He was fleeing.

I knew then, by the grip on my hand and the look in his eyes, that we weren't just exploring anymore. We were running for our lives.