The Throne Beneath the Roots

The air was different now.

Not cleaner, not brighter—deeper.

As if the wind itself had gained weight, charged with memory and marrow, the way a forest feels just before a storm. The cathedral had vanished behind them, swallowed by time. In its place stood the Queen, her bare feet touching the broken earth, each step healing a little more of the land.

No command was spoken. No royal decree was issued.

And yet, the world began to change.

Her presence was enough.

The First Kingdom, which had not existed for a thousand years, was being born again—not in marble, not in iron, but in living root and stone.

The land responded to her return like a child reaching for its mother.

And still, something darker coiled beneath it all. Watching. Waiting.

The Forest That Remembers

Their path led them into the Nargoth Grove, once called the Emerald Labyrinth. Now, it pulsed with half-light and forgotten names. Trees taller than cathedrals twisted toward the heavens, their bark inscribed with runes no living tongue could speak.

"This place shouldn't exist," Maerlyn whispered, fingers grazing one of the trees.

"It doesn't," Rowena replied, eyes narrow. "It remembers existing."

Moss clung to everything—deep green, thick as velvet, glittering faintly like stardust in the twilight. The air buzzed not with insects, but music—a harmony too old for mortal hearing. Beneath the forest floor, something stirred.

Aldric knelt, pressing his palm to the earth. "It's awake."

Kaelin unslung her hammer. "What is?"

And the Queen, her eyes distant, finally spoke.

"The Worldroot."

The Worldroot Wakes

Long ago, before thrones were built and crowns forged, before names mattered more than deeds, there had been one tree.

The Worldroot.

It didn't reach toward the sky—it burrowed downward, so deep that its branches touched the bones of the world itself. It had witnessed empires rise and fall, watched stars be born and eaten, held the dreams of the first gods in its branches.

And now…

It was moving.

The earth split in quiet gasps, revealing not stone, but veins of silver and blood, glowing beneath moss and memory. Each pulse echoed like a drumbeat.

thum-thum

thum-thum

thum-thum

They reached the Hollow, the heart of the Grove, where an ancient altar lay shattered in nine places.

Above it, suspended in air, spun a seed—not made of wood or life, but light and grief. It burned slowly, like a candle in a void.

"This is the last seed of the old world," said the Queen. "And the first seed of the new."

Maerlyn stared at it. "It's beautiful…"

"No," Rowena murmured. "It's alive."

Suddenly, the light dimmed.

And a voice, ancient and aching, filled the forest.

"Why… do you wake me?"

The trees bent.

The roots trembled.

The sky darkened—not from clouds, but from memories.

The Shade Beneath the Tree

From beneath the altar, something slithered forth. Not with claws or hunger, but with remorse.

A figure, cloaked in bark and bone, eyes glowing with starless flame.

It had once been a guardian.

Now it was something else.

"I was the Warden," it said. "I tended the seed. I wept when she fell. I bled when they crowned another."

It looked at the Queen.

"You were dead."

"I was forgotten," she replied.

The Warden snarled. "They buried me with your name, thinking it mercy."

Kaelin stepped forward. "We didn't come to fight."

"But I must," the Warden said. "For the world to bloom again, this seed must be sacrificed."

Aldric's eyes narrowed. "You mean killed."

The Warden nodded. "It holds the last sorrow. The true one. The first death. It must die… or the world will never forget."

Rowena's fingers tightened on her bow. "Or maybe it's time the world did remember."

The Queen stepped forward. Her voice wasn't loud, but the forest fell silent.

"There is another way."

Blood and Memory

The Queen lifted her hand and cut her palm with a blade of moonlight.

Golden-red blood spilled, glowing brighter than fire. She let it fall onto the altar.

The seed shuddered.

The Warden screamed.

But the Queen did not stop.

She cut again—this time across her chest, over her heart.

And as her blood touched the seed, it began to grow.

Roots burst from it like lightning made solid, cracking stone and memory alike. Vines coiled up her arms. A crown of living branches formed on her brow.

And her voice—now not just hers, but every version of her that had ever been—spoke one word:

"Live."

The Worldroot Blooms

The ground split open in a circle around them.

A tree rose—faster than anything had a right to. Its trunk wider than a castle, its bark smooth and dark as onyx, its leaves glowing blue and gold and green. It stretched upward, breaking the clouds, splitting sky from sky.

And at its center… a throne.

But not one of stone or gold.

A throne of living root, pulsing with life and sorrow and hope.

The Queen climbed its spiral steps. Not as ruler. Not as goddess. But as keeper.

The Warden fell to his knees.

"I failed you."

She touched his brow. "You held the memory. That is no failure."

He dissolved into mist—finally, free.

Echoes in the East

Far away, across the Gray Sea, in the ruined court of the Hollow Kings, a child screamed.

In the Ashen Peaks, where dragons once nested, a flame re-lit for the first time in 800 years.

In the Black Vault of Tyr-Korael, a door opened.

And an eye—massive, ancient, not quite living—opened within.

A voice spoke, in a tongue no longer known:

"She rises. Then so shall we."

Back in the Grove

Aldric looked up at the Queen, now seated upon the throne of root and sky.

"Is this it?" he asked. "The new beginning?"

She smiled. Not with certainty. But with peace.

"It's the seed. What it grows into… depends on us."

Maerlyn stared at the tree. "Do you think the world will accept it?"

Kaelin grinned. "We're not asking anymore."

Rowena looked over her shoulder—toward the storm on the horizon.

"They'll come," she said. "The kings. The priests. The ones who fed on her silence. They'll come with blades and chains."

The Queen's eyes blazed, but gently.

"Then let them come."