The wind had changed.
It came in low and bitter, coiling through the valley like a snake tasting the air before a strike. Trees bent under its weight, their branches groaning in protest as petals from the night flowers scattered across the village paths like spilled ink. The sky overhead was heavy with bruised clouds, smeared with streaks of crimson and violet, as if the heavens themselves bled slowly into dusk.
Aruna stood at the edge of the cliff that overlooked the southern ravine, her cloak snapping in the wind. Below, the once-still forest writhed with motion. The roots, once dormant, now pulsed visibly, thick, gnarled tendrils rippling just beneath the mossy soil as though something ancient stirred beneath them.
"The Rootbound sky," Mira had whispered earlier that morning, her voice filled with a quiet awe.
"It's not just a saying anymore. The forest is waking."
But it wasn't only awakening, it was reacting.
Aruna's hand rested lightly on her harpoon, though she had not drawn it. The weapon felt like a relic now, something forged for battles of flesh and blood. Whatever this was, whatever now lived beneath the soil and stirred the petals of the black bloom that had surfaced overnight, it wasn't born from war. It was older, quieter, and far more dangerous.
Behind her, the rhythmic thud of boots approached. Dren. She didn't turn.
"Seral's worried," he said simply, his voice low.
"The blooms are spreading."
Aruna exhaled slowly.
"How far?"
"Three kilometers past the Rootfire grove. We found another patch near the eastern stream. Same pattern, spiral growth, black petals, silver pollen."
"Any sign of toxicity?"
Dren shook his head.
"Not that we've seen. But the forest creatures are avoiding them. And the birds…" He hesitated.
"They're gone."
That chilled her more than she'd admit. The birds had been the first to return after the defeat of the Gate. Their songs had been a signal of life reclaiming the valley, a testament to renewal. If they'd gone silent again, it meant something had shifted.
Or something had arrived.
She turned to face Dren. His face was drawn, the faint scar along his cheek standing out sharply in the twilight. He'd aged since their first landing, though not in the way most did. It wasn't time that had worn him down, it was truth. The truth of what they'd faced beneath the Gate. The truth of what remained unspoken in the silence after.
"Did Mira finish decoding the spire's glyphs?" she asked.
"She's still at it," he replied.
"Kael and Tiro are with her. Kasim's reinforcing the western wall, he doesn't trust the shield to hold if something tries to get through underground."
Aruna nodded slowly.
"He's right not to."
The Black Bloom had emerged without warning. The first sprout was found beside the crystalline tree, the living core they'd uncovered in the sanctuary of Lysara's root network. It hadn't been there before, not even hours prior, and yet it had burst from the soil fully grown, its petals velvety and impossibly dark. Beneath it, the roots of the earth had begun to change. Thicker. Smarter. Almost… listening.
She touched the small pouch at her belt, where a single black petal lay preserved in salt. Mira had insisted they keep it separate from the village until its properties were better understood. But Aruna had kept one fragment with her, despite the risk.
The bloom had called to her. Just as the Gate once had.
Dren's gaze flicked toward her belt, then back to her face.
"You feel it too, don't you?"
"Yes." No point in lying.
"It's not like the Gate, though. It's not command or lure. It's… memory. Grief."
"Grief?"
She nodded.
"Old grief. Like something that waited too long to speak, and now that it has, it only knows how to mourn."
Dren fell silent, then turned to gaze out over the ravine with her. For a long time, the only sound was the distant groan of the trees, and the occasional flutter of ash-black petals riding the wind.
Then came the pulse.
A low hum, too deep to be heard with ears, rolled through the earth. The cliff trembled beneath their feet. Aruna dropped to one knee instinctively, palm pressed to the stone. The vibration moved through her bones, into her chest, thrumming like a heartbeat. It passed in seconds, but it left behind a hush, an unnatural quiet that made even the wind seem afraid to speak.
"We need to move," she said at last, standing.
Dren looked at her.
"Where?"
"To the oldest bloom."
He hesitated.
"Mira said."
"I know what Mira said. And she's right to be cautious. But we don't have time to wait for glyphs to unravel or roots to whisper truth. That bloom is connected to the Spiral Accord. The memory stored in that tree, it began leaking the moment we accessed it. This is its consequence."
Dren nodded. He didn't like it, but he trusted her.
As they descended into the lower forest, Aruna's mind ran through every map, every fragment Mira had pieced together. The Spiral Accord was not just a memory vault, it was a failsafe. A final safeguard meant to preserve Lysara's legacy should the Gate corrupt the network. It wasn't just biological, it was sentient. And now, that sentience was blooming in mourning.
The path to the first bloom was no longer a path.
The vines had rearranged the landscape. The moss writhed slowly underfoot, gently resisting each step as if weighing the intentions of the travelers. Light filtered oddly through the canopy, bent, refracted, tinted green with a faint phosphorescent shimmer.
By the time they reached the clearing, night had fallen. The bloom glowed faintly, its petals opening wider than before. At its base, the soil had split to reveal an intricate structure, veins of crystal woven into the roots like circuitry.
Mira was already there, crouched beside the bloom with a series of etched stones laid out in a circle. Kael and Tiro stood guard a few meters away, both visibly on edge.
"You came," Mira said without looking up. Her voice was distant, almost trance-like.
"What have you learned?" Aruna asked, kneeling beside her.
"It's not a plant," Mira whispered.
"Not in the traditional sense. It's a node."
"A node?"
"A network extension. But not from the Machine Age. It's something Lysara created… or became."
Aruna blinked.
"You mean Lysara herself?"
Mira finally looked up, her eyes rimmed with a faint silver glow.
"When she gave herself to the roots, she didn't just leave knowledge. She left consciousness. She fragmented her mind and scattered it through the root network. Each bloom… is her waking up."
Dren swore softly behind them. Kael stepped forward.
"Waking up sounds… good, right?"
"Maybe," Mira said quietly.
"But imagine waking after centuries, with only shards of yourself intact. The Spiral Accord wasn't meant to wake unless the Gate failed completely. It's panicking. That's why the blooms are grief-stricken. They're pieces of Lysara realizing what's been lost."
Aruna stared at the petals, their edges shifting subtly in the moonlight.
"Then how do we calm it?"
Mira hesitated, her hands brushing over the etched stones.
"That's why I called you here. It's not just awakening, it's reaching out. For a tether. A memory strong enough to help it reassemble. And it's calling to you, Aruna."
The silence that followed was not empty. It was alive, listening.
"You bore the light," Mira said softly.
"You ended the Gate. You were the vessel. You're the last living conduit with any direct imprint from Lysara's core. If anything can guide her mind back together, it's you."
Aruna felt the earth shift beneath her. Not physically, but spiritually. Like stepping into a current and realizing the river had been waiting.
She stood, approached the bloom, and reached out.
As her fingers brushed the petals, time fractured.
The forest disappeared.
She stood in a field of stars.
Endless. Silent. Luminous.
Before her, the silhouette of a woman formed, woven of vines, light, and shadow. Lysara.
Her voice echoed not in words, but in emotion. Loss. Wonder. Grief.
"You lived."
"Yes," Aruna whispered.
"You bore the flame, and survived the fading."
"I didn't do it alone."
The figure's hand lifted, brushing a strand of light across the sky. Images bloomed, Kasım at his forge, Mira writing by candlelight, Tiro sparring beneath the orchard trees, Dren standing alone at the forest edge.
"The bloom is not an end. It is a bridge. Memory to memory, root to root. But the bridge is breaking. The shadows return."
"The Shadow Hunters?"
"Worse. What drove them. The hunger beneath the sea. The Bloom remembers… and so must you."
Aruna's mind burned.
Images, unfamiliar yet intimately known, flashed through her: a machine pulsing beneath black waves, tendrils of code wrapped in coral and bone, a language older than civilization, screaming to be translated.
Then, silence.
And a single word:
"Return."
Aruna gasped.
She staggered back from the bloom, caught by Dren's hands before she fell.
Mira was watching her, breath held.
"What did you see?"
Aruna looked at the bloom.
"The past. And a warning."
Kael frowned.
"What kind of warning?"
"The thing that corrupted the Gate… it wasn't destroyed. Just delayed. It's still out there. Beneath the sea. Waiting."
The bloom pulsed once, its light softening.
Tiro stepped forward, his voice shaking.
"So what do we do?"
Aruna looked at her crew. Her family. Her people.
"We prepare," she said.
"The Shadow Hunters were only the beginning. The real war is deeper. Older. But we have something they don't."
Dren nodded.
"Lysara."
"No," Aruna said, her voice clear.
"Each other."
Behind them, the bloom swayed gently in the wind, a petal drifting loose and curling through the air, black as night, but tinged with the faintest light.
A promise.