CHAPTER 452: BENEATH (2)

The next morning dawned silver and green. Dew clung to the high branches like strings of glass beads, and birdsong threaded through the canopy.

Lorienya breathed in unison with the new day, unaware, or perhaps unwilling to acknowledge, the subtle tremor that had whispered through its heart the night before.

Lindarion hadn’t slept. He stood upon one of the outer watch platforms, cloak rippling in the early breeze, eyes following the horizon where the mist began to break. Ashwing sat beside him, tail flicking lazily, a tiny flame dancing at its tip.

"You look like you’ve been staring at the same spot for hours," the dragon muttered, stretching.

"I have," Lindarion replied. "The earth beneath this forest hides something vast. I can feel it shifting."

Ashwing yawned. "You always say that before something explodes."

"An apt prediction," Lindarion murmured, lips twitching faintly.

Below, the training grounds had filled again, hundreds of elves sparring in the glades, their movements a blur of emerald light.

He watched the harmony they created together, each motion echoing through the roots, feeding the World Tree’s calm. The forest itself seemed to sigh with relief.

For a moment, he allowed himself to believe it might last.

Then, the tremor returned.

Subtle. Barely perceptible. But Lindarion felt it instantly, a sharp divergence beneath the ground, like a string being plucked out of tune.

The pulse of the World Tree faltered for a heartbeat, then steadied again. The soldiers didn’t notice, but every leaf along the canopy shivered.

Ashwing’s head snapped up, nostrils flaring. "You felt that?"

"Yes," Lindarion said quietly. "It’s closer this time."

"Still under the roots?"

"No," Lindarion said, his gaze turning toward the western ridge. "Under the old glades."

That name carried weight among the elves, the old glades, an area sealed generations ago after a blight corrupted the soil. The forest had since overgrown it, but none dared step there. Even the roots avoided it, twisting away as though from poison.

Lindarion turned from the railing. "I’m going."

Ashwing hopped onto his shoulder, stretching his wings. "You’re not doing the whole ’silent hero disappears at dawn’ thing again, are you?"

"I’m just walking," Lindarion said.

"That’s what you said before we ended up fighting molten spirits."

The prince’s faint smile didn’t reach his eyes. "Stay alert."

—

By midday, the sunlight dimmed into a pale haze as Lindarion approached the old glades. The trees grew denser here, their trunks gnarled and twisted, the moss thicker, darker. The air carried a faint metallic tang, the residue of old corruption buried deep.

He crouched, brushing his fingers against the soil. It pulsed once beneath his touch, weak, unstable. Like an injured beast breathing shallowly.

The World Tree’s mana still reached this far, but thinly, as if reluctant to claim this land.

He rose slowly, eyes narrowing. "Something is feeding off the tree’s roots."

Ashwing’s tail flicked uneasily. "That’s... bad, right?"

"Yes," Lindarion said. "It means something old has learned to drink what it shouldn’t."

They pressed deeper into the woods.

The silence there was absolute, no insects, no birds. Even the light seemed hesitant to enter. The path sloped downward, revealing the faint outline of broken ruins, ancient stone covered in vines and symbols too eroded to read.

Elven runes. Older than Lorienya itself.

Lindarion stopped before an archway half-swallowed by roots. The carvings pulsed faintly with light, green and gold, but with something darker threading through, like veins of oil.

Ashwing sniffed the air. "It smells... wrong."

"It’s mana decay," Lindarion said. "When divine essence is consumed by something that isn’t divine."

He stepped forward, laying a hand on the stone. The carvings flickered in response, and for an instant, he saw it, an image burned across time.

Elves, bowing before a great tree. A radiant heart pulsing at its base. Then the vision cracked, and a shadow bled through the carvings, swallowing the figures whole.

The prince’s golden eyes dimmed slightly.

"Dythrael’s corruption... or something before him," he murmured.

He entered the ruins.

Inside, the air was thick and heavy. Roots hung from the ceiling like veins, glowing faintly. Pools of stagnant mana shimmered along the ground, their surface trembling as if alive. The silence pressed closer with each step, broken only by Ashwing’s soft wingbeats.

Then, the voice came.

Not a sound, but a vibration, a whisper threading through the air like wind through glass. Child of the World Tree...

Lindarion froze. "Who speaks?"

Ashwing’s wings flared. "That’s not funny."

The whisper came again, now softer, closer. You bear the seed of unity... yet you walk upon broken roots.

Lindarion’s grip on his blade tightened. "Show yourself."

The air shimmered. A faint outline took shape at the center of the chamber, a figure woven from light and shadow, its form constantly shifting. Not elven. Not human. Something between.

Its voice carried echoes of both male and female tones, ancient and tired. Long has the Tree slept, bound by sorrow and silence. You have woken it... and now, all its memories stir.

Lindarion’s pulse steadied. "Who are you?"

The First Root, it whispered. The one that reached down when the gods still bled into the soil. The memory of balance.

He frowned. "Then you are the guardian of this place?"

I was, it answered. Until the corruption came. Until the roots forgot their beginning.

Ashwing’s voice cracked with unease. "Lindarion... we should leave. This thing’s mana is weird—it’s not like yours or the Tree’s. It’s—hungry."

The figure turned its faceless gaze toward the dragon. Ah... a flame reborn. How curious that the winds still birth such things.

Then its form flickered violently. The air rippled with mana distortion.

Lindarion raised his hand, channeling a faint golden aura. "Hold."

But the First Root convulsed, its voice splitting between tones, a static shriek echoing through the chamber. The light in its form blackened, spreading like ink.

Ashwing hissed. "It’s not talking anymore!"

The air exploded with pressure.

Corrupted tendrils erupted from the ground, slamming toward Lindarion. He moved instantly, blade flashing, lightning streaking from his fingertips as he severed each one before it reached him. Mana cracked through the ruins, light and shadow colliding in violent bursts.

The corrupted guardian screamed, not in rage, but in agony.