Chapter 22: Blood for the Root

Chapter 22: Blood for the Root

Three months after the burning of Daga't Naghihimlay, Bastion had changed.

The trenches no longer echoed with the emptiness of old war. Codex-tethered vines now spiraled along its walls, pulsing faintly like veins. Flamevaults responded to voice rather than command glyphs. New halls had been dug—not for strategy, but for remembrance. Memory shrines, training terraces, and echo wells where stories could be spoken and stored.

The Bastion lived now. And it listened.

In the Flamevault's chamber of stillglass, Kael sat with Serrin beneath a quiet Codex bloom. Above them, rootlight shimmered gently across mirrored stone.

"I still see him, Serrin," Kael whispered. "Burning, not from rage. From love. From loss. And I couldn't stop it."

Serrin's eyes stayed on the swirling rootlight.

"Then stop trying to carry him, Kael. Start listening to the ones who stayed."

Kael turned to her, eyes weary.

"How can I lead if the weight I bear isn't enough?"

She touched the side of the Codex shard beside them. It glowed.

"Maybe it's not about bearing it. Maybe it's about sharing it."

Below, in the central courtyard, the warhost trained.

Where once banners stood divided, now highlanders stood among them—mutated, scarred, but breathing the same fire. A Morrowseed hybrid taught a group of highlander archers to read pulse-routes in the roots. The highlanders, in return, showed how to carve wind glyphs into stones without Codex aid—just memory and ink.

In another hall, a Veiled agent argued with a young tattooed scout.

"If you don't give me your trail-marking code, we can't secure the pass."

"If you can't survive the pass, you don't deserve the trail," the highlander replied calmly.

A pause.

Then a smirk.

"But I'll take you through. If you can walk silent."

Elsewhere, a Brinevein enforcer watched as a highlander boy manipulated water streams without glyphs.

"No Codex?"

"Just listening," the boy replied, placing a hand to his ear. "The water sings. You just forgot the song."

Inside the council chamber, Whisper-Vow laid out her report.

Kael stood beside Talym, Serrin at his left. Zhaer paced near the eastern wall, arms crossed.

"He's not where we expected," Whisper-Vow began. "We've searched the Cordilleras end to end. Etuun's not hiding—he's erasing himself."

"Then how do we keep hearing about him?" Zhaer asked.

Whisper-Vow slid forward a set of carved tokens—glyphless, but scorched with clawed Xs.

"Because they speak. The hybrids he rescues. The ones pulled from Ashvault caravans and Nullborn camps."

She looked up.

"They all say the same thing. A beast attacks. Kills the slavers. Frees the chained. Then points—north. To us."

Silence.

Then Kael:

"Has he spoken?"

"Not once."

Talym leaned forward.

"Not even to those he saved?"

"Only one phrase. Whispered by an elder woman before she died."

She looked at Kael.

"She said, 'The flame answers. But only when it remembers the name it was given.'"

Serrin met Kael's eyes.

"He's watching us. Testing if Bastion was worth saving."

"And if we weren't?" Kael asked.

"Then he'll stay a ghost. And ghosts don't build. They haunt."

Outside, beneath the inner rampart, a group of children sat around VyrmClaw. He was silent, looming as ever, but his claws gently carved symbols into stone.

A highlander girl whispered:

"Is it true? The Hollow-Clawed lives?"

VyrmClaw didn't look up.

"Truth burns longer than fire. So yes."

Kael stood atop the Bastion's crown by nightfall.

Wind rolled in from the north.

Serrin joined him.

"What now?"

"We move," Kael said.

"Where?"

"Where the chains still drag. Where the names are still stolen."

"And Etuun?"

Kael's eyes lit.

"He'll find us. Or we'll find him."

"And when you do?"

Kael looked to the flame.

"I'll give him back what the Codex took. Not power. A choice."

Next: Chapter 23 – The Beast in the Cliffs