The First Vow

Silence hung over the glade like a held breath.Where once the Worldroot loomed—monumental and cursed—now stood only peace.

The air, no longer thick with ancestral sorrow, shimmered with new magic. Sunlight pierced the canopy above in beams of golden fire. Birds returned, cautious but drawn by something deeper than instinct.

Sylvanor stood still, his palm resting on the hilt of his will, heart trembling in his chest.

He turned his gaze downward, to the sapling—still rooted in the exact heart of where the Worldroot had died. Its leaves shimmered like emerald glass, glowing faintly as if remembering the stars.

The forest no longer rejected him. It listened.

And now… it waited.

II. Naming the Sapling

He knelt, slowly, reverently. One hand extended. Dirt clung to his fingers, blood still stained the tatters of his exile robe, but his voice was steady.

"Your name," he said, "shall be Rakshak... the Protector."

The word struck the earth like thunder.Roots trembled. Leaves danced. The wind caught the name and carried it into every crevice of the forest.

The sapling shimmered brighter. Its form shifted—not with the agony of mutation, but with the grace of creation.

Wood twisted. Bark coiled. From root and twig emerged a small figure—a humanoid formed of slender branches and living bark, no taller than Sylvanor's knee. Its chest pulsed with green light. Eyes of leaffire blinked open. A tiny wooden mouth curled into a solemn line.

The forest gasped in a thousand whispers.

The creature took a single step forward, joints creaking softly like trees in wind. Then it bowed low, one arm across its chest.

"Always in your protection, my King," it said. "Your voice is my command."

Sylvanor's eyes widened. His throat tightened.He stepped back, shaking his head.

"I'm no king," he said. "I'm just a trashed prince. A walking omen. You're wasting your loyalty."

Rakshak tilted its small head, considering the words as though pondering the wind itself.

"You saved the Root of Life," it said at last."You gave me a name. You carry the power of growth, of death, and of rebirth. You hold the Verdant Crown, even if you cannot see it.""You are King of this Forest. And of me. Rule us."

Sylvanor could only stare. No blade had ever struck him so deeply.In a life cursed by betrayal and prophecy, here stood the first being to choose him.

Not for lineage.Not for prophecy.But because of a single act of mercy.

Something deep inside Sylvanor shifted.

Not like an awakening—he had already passed through that fire. This was softer. Older. A thread that had been pulled too tight finally loosened.

Grief no longer clawed at his chest.Betrayal no longer burned behind his eyes.And for one heartbeat longer than the rest, exile didn't feel like a wound—it felt like beginning.

He tilted his face toward the treetops. The light there dappled through branches now bent slightly toward him, as if listening. A breeze wound through the clearing, gentle as breath, carrying a sound he had not heard in years.

His name.Not cursed. Not whispered.Spoken by the forest itself.

He smiled.

Faint. Fragile.But real.

His voice came as a hush, a vow made not to gods or ghosts—but to himself.

"Let's live a peaceful life."

Rakshak lowered his wooden head in quiet reverence.

"As your command, my King."

And so the forest exhaled.

The old rot slept. The curses fell silent. Life—slow, sacred life—began again.

Sylvanor, once the Seventh Prince, once the exile, once the foretold doom…now stood not as heir, nor outcast—but sovereign.

He did not march, nor command, nor roar.

He walked.Quietly.Into the deeper grove where green things dreamed, and new roots took hold.

At his side trotted a tiny wooden figure—his first follower.His first subject.And, perhaps, his first friend.