The silver tree stood in perfect stillness where the altar had been, its branches reaching toward nothing in particular. No birds came to roost. No insects crawled along its bark. Even the air around it forgot how to move, creating a pocket of absolute calm that felt more like held breath than peace.
Ashara slept beneath it, curled on ground that should have been harsh stone but had become something softer—not grass, not moss, just surface that had forgotten how to be cruel to small bodies. Dust refused to settle on her. Fear couldn't find her there.
"Should we..." Dorian started, then stopped. What was the protocol for trees born from divine unmaking?
"I don't know," I admitted. We stood at the edge of the tree's influence, watching our daughter sleep with the abandon only children could manage after killing gods with silence. "It doesn't feel threatening. But it doesn't feel safe either."
The tree's branches didn't sway—wind existed again beyond its sphere but dared not enter. Instead, the branches seemed to angle themselves subtly, as if listening to conversations we hadn't had yet. When I looked directly at the trunk, I caught glimpses of runes shimmering beneath the silver bark. Look away, and they existed. Look directly, and they hid.
"We should bury it," Dorian said quietly, nodding toward the pile of ash that had been divine enforcement. "Whatever it was, it shouldn't be left to blow away."
Together, we gathered the remains. They felt heavier than ash should, weighted with the echoes of every child who'd been bound at this altar, every prophecy that had been spoken into unwilling mouths. We dug with our hands at the base of the tree, where roots like liquid silver parted earth as if it were water.
Ashara woke as we placed the last handful in the ground. She watched us with those impossible eyes, understanding more than any child should.
"Will this always happen when I say nothing?" she asked, voice small but steady.
I could have lied. Could have offered comfort that everything would be normal, that her silence was just another choice among many. But she'd earned truth through her courage.
"Only when they fear your silence more than their commands," I said. "When your refusal to speak threatens what they've built on words."
She considered this with the gravity of someone triple her years. "So not always. Just sometimes."
"Just sometimes," I confirmed.
The tree pulsed once—a heartbeat of light that traveled from roots to crown. Something fell from its branches, landing with a soft sound in the dust. Ashara picked it up before we could stop her, cradling it in her small palms.
A seed. Smooth as river stone, silver as moonlight, warm as living flesh.
"Careful—" Dorian started, but Ashara was already closing her eyes, and I knew that look. The same expression she wore when memories that weren't quite hers surfaced.
"It's speaking," she said. "Not words. Older."
The air around the tree shimmered, and for a moment I glimpsed what she might be seeing—or perhaps the tree was showing us all. A vision made of maybe, painted in shades of could-be.
A world where that seed was planted. Not here, not in any place that currently existed, but in the space between. From it grew not a tree but a possibility—a new way of being that wasn't god or mortal, prophet or silence. Something other. Something that had never been because no one had thought to refuse loudly enough to create the space for it.
I saw Ashara there, older but not aged, walking paths that carved themselves from her footsteps. Not ruling, not serving, not ascending or descending. Just being, in a way that made the old categories obsolete.
The vision faded, leaving us gasping in air that suddenly felt too thin.
"It's not memory," Ashara said, still holding the seed. "It's invitation."
The tree pulsed again, softer this time. Patient. It had grown from refusal, and so it understood the power of waiting for the right moment to choose.
"Will you plant it?" I asked, though part of me feared the answer.
Ashara studied the seed with the focus of someone holding a living star. Then, with careful movements, she tucked it into the small pouch at her waist where she kept her treasures—smooth stones, a feather that had forgotten how to fall, now this seed of possibility.
"Not yet," she decided. "I want to choose when the world changes. Not because it needs changing, but because I decide it's time."
The wisdom in those words made my chest ache. My daughter, who'd learned that power wasn't in the having but in the choosing when to use it—or not use it at all.
A breeze stirred, the first natural movement of air since the tree had grown. It started beyond the tree's influence, then grew bold enough to rustle its silver branches. The sound was like laughter, or tears, or both combined.
"We should go," Dorian said. "This place will draw attention now. Different attention than before."
He was right. A tree that grew from divine death, that offered seeds of new possibility—such things didn't go unnoticed. Seekers would come. Some to worship, some to destroy, some to understand. None of them needed to find Ashara here.
We gathered our few things, Ashara yawning with the honest exhaustion of a child who'd done impossible things. As we reached the edge of the clearing, movement caught my eye.
The forest—the ordinary, mortal forest that surrounded this place of power—was moving. Every tree, from ancient oak to youngest sapling, had turned toward the silver tree. Not bending, not bowing in worship.
Just... acknowledging. The way you might nod to someone who'd done what needed doing, even if the doing had been terrible and strange.
The forest bows—not in reverence, but in agreement.
We walked into that understanding forest, carrying a seed of change and a child who'd learned to make silence speak. Behind us, the silver tree stood guard over the grave of divine assumption, its branches reaching toward skies that would never be quite the same.
And somewhere in Ashara's pouch, a seed waited. Patient as its mother-tree. Ready to grow something new when the time was right.
When she chose it to be right.
The wind followed us, carrying neither prophecy nor threat. Just air moving as air should move, freed from the weight of having to mean something more.
🌙💎 If you're enjoying Aria's rise, drop a Power Stone and add the book to your Library! Your support helps the Moon Queen burn brighter 🔥🌕
📚 New chapters DAILY!