CHAPTER 148: THE FORK BLEEDS

The way out of the cave wasn’t really a climb at all—it felt more like tearing through a place that no longer wished to exist.

The Fork itself seemed to bleed. The air split apart, thin cracks spreading everywhere like streaks of white fire.

Pieces of the stone walls floated for a moment before crumbling into dust and vanishing. Above, the ceiling stretched and bulged as though it were nothing more than cloth pulled too hard, trembling on the edge of ripping wide open.

Every step felt wrong, as though they were moving through a place that didn’t know what it wanted to be. One moment it seemed like solid stone beneath their boots, the next it wavered like the surface of water.

The ground didn’t shake like in an earthquake—it shifted because it couldn’t make up its mind.

Sometimes the air itself hardened underfoot like brittle planks, only to break apart into dust. It was like walking across a world caught between sky and earth, neither one steady enough to hold them.

Mika forced herself up to her feet, though her legs shook so badly she thought they might give way at any moment.

Her hair was plastered to her sweaty face, strands sticking to her skin as she tried to catch her breath. She leaned hard against Kael’s shoulder, using him to keep herself steady, even though he was trembling just as much as she was.

Neither of them had any strength left; every movement felt heavier than the last. But there was no turning back. No matter how weak they were, forward was the only path left to take.

Kael’s dim but sharp eyes scanned the crevices yawning open under their feet. His thin, strained voice sounded out, but firm enough to guide. "Step wide. Trust not at all the ground where the light shows. It’ll give."

Mika nodded weakly, mouth compressing tightly, too exhausted to waste words. Her bow still remained at her back, but her fingers could barely flex, much less close over a string. Survival was all that was left.

Nyra took to the air. Her wings drew behind her, each slow sweep conserving strength. She did not look back at first—she was looking ahead at the landscape before it tore itself apart beneath them. But then she glanced at Kaito.

He walked behind the rest, his scythe buried in the ground with every pace. His silhouette shook, blue filaments dancing across his arms and shoulders, ghostly.

The light did not emanate from him whatsoever—it glowed from within him, oozing through his skin like cracks in glass.

Nyra saw this. She said nothing.

But her silence wasn’t the silence of someone who didn’t understand.

It was the silence of someone who saw a fire spreading through dry wood, knowing it was only a matter of time before the flames swallowed the whole forest and left nothing but ash. She had spoken nothing because she already knew what the end would look like.

The path narrowed until there was no room to walk side by side. They were forced into a single line, moving carefully across what had once been a solid stone ridge.

Now it dangled in the open, cracked and broken on both sides, like a thin bridge hanging in midair and crumbling apart piece by piece.

Halfway across, Mika’s foot slipped on the unstable ground. Her body lurched sideways, and for a terrifying moment she almost toppled into the endless void below.

Kael’s hand shot out just in time. His grip shook with weakness, but it was strong enough to pull her back to safety.

"Don’t stop," he grated, his own eyes darting down to the white emptiness. "If you look too long, it’ll pull you in."

She shuddered, eyes tightly shut for a moment, then nodded again, hauling herself along with a small grunt. Her boots scraped against the slippery surface, but she would not glance down again.

Kaito walked behind the others, his steps dragging, each one slower and heavier than the last. Inside him, a steady thrum grew louder, almost drowning out the sound of the world breaking apart around them.

It wasn’t the rhythm of footsteps or of the crumbling Fork—it was something deeper, older.

The Root’s heartbeat. Relentless, unstoppable, moving at a pace that belonged only to itself. And yet Kaito felt it echoing through his own chest, like a second heartbeat chasing his own, a shadow pulse that refused to let go.

[ALL THAT FALLS RETURNS]

The voice stroked his skull as white noise, words breaking into a thousand susurrations.

He clenched his teeth until blood trickled from where his teeth clamped on his lip.

"I am not you," he breathed into nothingness.

But the voice did not argue this time. It merely pulsed again, slow and steady, like it had nothing to convince him. It simply waited.

When finally they came to a ledge that stood, they fell in silence.

Mika leaned against the wall, her body shaking with exhaustion. She buried her face against her knees, muffling her ragged breathing. Every tremor of the Fork went straight through her skeleton, shaking her from within.

Kael leaned against her, hacking into his arm, painting red lines onto his face. His eyes remained closed for too long between gasps, but he never allowed them to remain closed, struggling to push the darkness back.

Nyra stood slightly back, observing Kaito. Her silver eyes were keener now, more wary. She did not take up her sword, but her hand rested beside it. The movement was accidental, instinctive—a hunter rounding, prepared to attack should what she was viewing turn from friend to beast.

Kaito had looked at her once, then glanced aside. He could not stand the burden in them.

The Fork groaned above. A fissure yawned in the sky, releasing thin liquid light like a rip in flesh that would not heal. Shapes danced within that light—shapes that had been lives, or perhaps memories, long since walked here. Faces, hands, slivers of laughter twisted into screams.

Mika hid her face in her knees, refusing to look. The mere glimpse was enough to shatter her final shards of strength.

Kael watched with grim focus, his breath shallow. "The Fork is collapsing into its own memory. Soon there won’t be difference between what was and what is."

His gaze shifted toward Kaito, and though his tone didn’t change, the weight behind his words sharpened. "And at the center of it all... you’re carrying the piece that refused to die."

Kaito closed his eyes. He didn’t need Kael to tell him. The truth pressed at his ribs with every heartbeat, trying to claw its way free.

Nyra’s voice broke the silence. "What happens if it breaks free in him?"

It wasn’t a question meant for Kael, but he answered anyway, his voice dry, cutting.

"Then we’ll see the Root again. Not in stone and shadow this time. But in flesh."

The words hung like a blade between them.

Mika lifted her head, her voice shaking. "You’re saying... he’ll become it."

Kael did not nod. He did not need to. The silence in his face said enough.

Kaito pushed himself to his feet, his body aching, the violet glow still crawling along his arms. He faced them, though he couldn’t quite meet their eyes.

"If so," he replied, his voice harsh, "then you kill me."

Mika flinched as though struck. Nyra’s eyes grew cold and unreadable. Kael only looked at him, unblinking.

"I’m not kidding," Kaito said, his tone more resolute. "Don’t ask me to explain. If I fall—if it comes to that—you cut me down."

No response.

It was Nyra who finally broke the silence. "You think you’ll turn and just kill me?"

"You will have to," he said.

Her wings twitched once, rigid, as if a blade were being tested. "No. I won’t."

Something fiery burned at the nape of Kaito’s throat. He swallowed it. "Then you’ll destroy everything."

Her eyes blazed silver in the leaping light. "Then I’ll destroy it with you."

The words cracked something within him that the Root was unable to reach. He walked away before the silence between them could shatter further. His grip on the haft of his scythe clenched, the weapon humming softly with the same beat as the pulse in his chest.

The shakes grew worse. Rock crumbled from the ledges overhead and melted before it reached the ground. There was a rumble in the Fork, not thunder and not a voice, but something immense and conclusive.

Kael strained himself to standing, weaving but resolved. "We have to go. The break isn’t going to wait on us."

Mika pulled herself up beside him, her gaunt face set. She smeared grit across her skin on the back of her hand, but remained silent.

Nyra’s gaze stayed with Kaito one extra beat before she wheeled, wings cinched tight.

Together, they ascended once again—four dark shapes ascending through a world draining itself dry.

But Kaito knew better with every step.

The Root wasn’t complete.

It didn’t need the cavern. It didn’t need its body.

It had him.

And as the Fork bled all around them, he knew the next war would not be fought in stone or sky.

It would be fought in him.