The sun was a merciless, indifferent eye in the sky, beating down on the dusty road. Hours had passed since the horrific, beautiful transformation, yet the gloom of that moment clung to them like a physical shroud.
Leonotis walked in the center of their small, funereal procession, a ghost animated only by the mechanical need to place one foot in front of the other. He cradled the small oak sapling in his arms, a precious, terrible burden.
Its new leaves, a vibrant, mocking green, rustled softly in the hot breeze. His own eyes were dull and empty, fixed on a point somewhere beyond the horizon that no one else could see.
Jacqueline and Low flanked him, the space between them charged with an unbearable, unspoken sorrow.
"Leonotis," Jacqueline had tried an hour ago, her voice soft. "Your hands are scraped raw. Maybe I could carry her for a while?"
He hadn't even seemed to hear her, his grip on the sapling tightening almost imperceptibly.
Now, Low broke the silence again, her voice raspy with dust and impatience. She wiped a bead of sweat from her brow with the back of a grimy hand.
"We can't keep this up. We're sitting ducks out here. He's going to collapse from the heat, and we're not far enough from that damn institute."
Jacqueline glanced from Low's hardened expression to Leonotis's vacant one.
"She's right," she murmured, her words meant more for Low than for the boy who was lost in his grief. "But where can we go? We can't just walk into a town, Low. Not after what we did. Not with… her." She gestured with her chin toward the sapling.
"We have to," Low insisted, lowering her voice. "One more night sleeping in a ditch and I think we all might fall apart. He needs a roof. A real one."
Leonotis gave no sign he had heard. He just kept walking, his footsteps kicking up small, mournful puffs of dust.
Zombiel shuffled behind them, the fiery spirit within him strangely muted, his usual quietness now imbued with a somber respect that felt heavier than any words.
Finally, the road crested a low hill, revealing a sleepy-looking village nestled in a gentle bend of a sparkling river.
A few plumes of smoke drifted lazily from stone chimneys. It was unremarkable, quiet, and blessedly normal.
"There," Low said, her voice firm with decision. "Irokoton. We'll stop there. We'll be quiet. In and out."
They found an inn called "The Weary Traveler."
A modest building with a slightly sagging roof and paint faded by years of sun and rain.
The moment they stepped inside, the noise of the common room—a handful of farmers nursing mugs of ale—seemed to die down as heads turned to stare at the four strange, travel-stained children, especially the one clutching a small tree.
Low strode to the bar, ignoring the stares.
"We need a room," she said, her voice leaving no room for argument.
She dropped a small handful of coppers on the worn wood, the last of their scavenged coin.
The balding innkeeper eyed the money, then the children, his gaze lingering on the sapling.
"What's with the tree, little miss?" he asked, a hint of suspicion in his tone.
"He likes plants," Low shot back flatly. "Is there a room or not?"
The innkeeper shrugged, sweeping the coins into his palm. "One room. In the back. No trouble."
The room was small and smelled of dust and old linen.
It held four narrow cots and a single, grime-streaked window that looked out onto a neglected patch of weeds.
Without a word, Leonotis walked past the cots to the window. With a reverence that was painful to watch, he placed the oak sapling carefully on the wide sill, angling its leaves toward the fading afternoon light.
His duty done, he retreated to the farthest cot, curled into a tight ball with his back to the room, and pulled a thin, scratchy blanket over his head.
Low let out a long sigh, dropping her pack to the floor with a heavy thud. "Well, this is an improvement," she muttered sarcastically.
Jacqueline placed a gentle hand on her arm. "Give him time, Low. What he saw… what he felt… it was…" She trailed off, unable to find the right words.
Zombiel tilted his head, his fiery eyes fixed on the motionless lump under the blanket.
"He is sad," he stated, his voice a flat observation of an undeniable fact. "The fire inside him is… wet."
Low ran a hand through her tangled hair, her own anger a shield against the grief that threatened to overwhelm her.
"Yeah, Sparky. It's wet. Soaking." She looked from the boy to the sapling in the window, a silent, leafy witness to their failure. "And sitting in this room isn't going to dry it out. We tried to save her, and she turned into a… a decoration. What are we even supposed to do now?"
"We did what could," Jacqueline said softly, though her voice lacked conviction. "We got her out. The rest… the rest was a choice her spirit made. It's not a failure, Low. It's a tragedy."
"Call it what you want," Low retorted, her voice cracking slightly. "It still feels the same."
She took a deep breath, reining in her emotions. "Fine. Let him rest. He can have the night. But we can't stay here. In the morning, we figure out what to do. With him… and with it."
Her gaze on the little oak tree was a mixture of resentment and sorrow.
Hours crawled by, measured only by the slow march of sunlight across the grimy windowpane.
The air in the small inn room grew stuffy, thick with the scent of dust and the profound weight of unanswered grief.
From the corner cot, there was no movement, no sound.
The three friends convened near the door, their whispers as sharp and quiet as secrets in the oppressive silence.
"He hasn't touched the water I brought," Jacqueline said, her voice a low murmur of concern. Her gaze was fixed on the still form under the blanket. "It's like he's trying to disappear. He's locked himself away in there, and I don't know how to find the key."
"Staring at the wall isn't a plan," Low countered, her frustration a coiled, tense energy. She paced the small space between the door and her own cot, her footsteps unnaturally light. "We can't just sit here and watch him waste away. We need food. Supplies. If we're leaving at dawn, we need to be ready."
Zombiel, who had been watching the untouched plate of bread and cheese on the floor, looked from the cot to the oak sapling on the windowsill.
"He does not eat," he observed in his flat, unwavering tone. He pointed a pale finger at the tree. "It does not eat. They are the same now."
The simple observation hung in the air.
Jacqueline's shoulders slumped. "He's right. The grief has taken root." She looked at Low, a silent understanding passing between them. "You're right, too. Staying here, watching him… it helps no one."
"Good," Low nodded, relieved to have a course of action, any action at all. "So we go out. We'll find some hot food, something better than stale bread. We'll see what this town has to offer."
She glanced back at the cot. "And we'll give him some space. Maybe… maybe being alone is what he needs right now."
It was a question more than a statement, a guess from someone completely out of her depth.
Jacqueline took the plate of bread and cheese and placed it on the floor beside Leonotis's cot, a hopeful, futile gesture.
With a shared, worried look, the three of them slipped out of the room, their departure a pretense of purpose.
They closed the door softly behind them, leaving the boy and the tree to their silent vigil.
The click of the latch was deafening.
The silence rushed in to fill the space they left, and Leonotis felt it as a physical pressure.
It wasn't merely the absence of his friends' whispers; it was a profound void, a phantom limb where his connection to the vibrant, green world had been.
Before, even in the quietest moments, he could feel the hum of life—the slow, patient thoughts of trees, the secret bustle of roots in the earth.
Now, there was nothing.
A deafening silence where a symphony used to be.
He couldn't bear it. He needed an answer.
Uncurling from his cot, Leonotis sat up. His gaze fell on the sapling, its leaves a heartbreakingly perfect shade of green in the dusty light. The last of her life. A monument to his failure.
He squeezed his eyes shut, turning his focus inward, away from the painful sight.
He reached with his senses, not for the deadened world around him, but for the memory of the dream.
He pictured the glade bathed in its moon-like glow, the ancient trees, the swirling mist.
He called out with all the desperate energy left in his soul, not with his voice, but with the raw, pleading core of his being.
Please, he begged the empty space in his mind. I did what you asked. I went to the Institute. I found her. Why? Why did she have to… change? Tell me what I need to do!
He pushed deeper, searching for that resonant, melodic voice, that feeling of fierce, radiant life.
He waited for the flicker of green light, the mental touch of a hand, a single word of guidance or comfort.
The silence that answered was not peaceful.
It was absolute.
It was a blank wall of static where a clear signal had once been.
He pushed again, and felt only a hollow echo of his own despair bouncing back at him.
The connection wasn't there.
The line to the one being he thought would understand—the one who sent him on this path—was silent.
Leonotis's eyes snapped open.
The dusty inn room came back into sharp, cruel focus.
The faint light on the wall.
The silent oak sapling on the sill.
The hope he hadn't even realized he was clinging to—that the dream-woman would explain, would absolve him, would tell him it wasn't his fault—crumbled into ash.
He hadn't just failed the dryad in the orb.
He had been abandoned by the woman of his dreams as well.
The woman in the dreams was gone.
And Leonotis was utterly, terribly alone.
The market square was a small, bustling pocket of life, a stark contrast to the stagnant silence of the inn room.
The air smelled of baked bread, river fish, and damp cobblestones.
For the three friends, however, the cheerful noise of merchants hawking their wares and villagers haggling over produce felt distant and alien.
They had a mission, however vague and desperate it might be.
Jacqueline, drawn to the quietest corner of the square, found a scribe's stall tucked between a weaver's shop and a cooperage.
An old man with ink-stained fingers and a magnifying lens perched on his nose sat hunched over a ledger.
Rolls of parchment were stacked neatly in wooden cubbies behind him.
"Excuse me," Jacqueline began, her voice soft and polite. "Do you have any scrolls for sale? Perhaps… poetry? Or tales of the Old Forest?"
She hoped for a story of rebirth, of an acorn growing into a mighty oak, some philosophical balm she could offer Leonotis to soothe the sharp edges of his grief.
The scribe looked up, his eyes magnified to a watery largeness.
"Poetry? Lass, this is a trading town, not the Royal Library in the capital. I've got shipping manifests from the river trade, tax records for the local lord, and contracts for the sale of lumber. You need to know how many barrels of salted fish went downriver last month, I'm your man. Poetry?"
He chuckled, a dry, rattling sound. "Poetry doesn't fill the belly."
Disappointed, Jacqueline thanked him and retreated back into the crowd.
Low, meanwhile, followed her nose.
The logic of poetry was lost on her; the logic of an empty stomach was something she understood intimately.
She found what she was looking for at a stall with a plume of savory steam rising from a small clay oven.
A stout woman with flour-dusted hands was pulling out perfectly browned meat pies.
The smell was rich with roasted herbs and gravy.
"How much for three?" Low asked, her eyes fixed on the steaming pastries.
"Six coppers, dearie," the woman said cheerfully.
Low's face fell. She counted the few coins left in her pouch. "I've only got four."
The woman's smile faltered slightly, but she eyed Low's worn clothes and the fierce, hungry look in her eyes.
"Tell you what," she said, her voice softening. "You look like you've had a long road. Take two. On the house."
She wrapped two of the pies in a clean cloth. "A hot meal can mend more than you think."
"Thanks," Low muttered, surprised by the kindness. She clutched the warm, heavy bundle, a small, tangible piece of comfort in a world that had offered very little of it.
Zombiel wandered without a clear purpose, a pale ghost amidst the vibrant market.
The chatter and smells meant little to him, but the flashes of creation drew his eye.
He stopped before the open doors of the blacksmith's forge, the rhythmic clang… CLANG… clang of a hammer on steel a powerful, living sound.
Inside, a muscular man with a sweat-sheened brow hammered a glowing bar of iron, sending a shower of brilliant orange sparks into the air with every strike.
Zombiel watched, mesmerized.
The fiery spirit of the salamander within him stirred, recognizing a kindred energy in the raw, untamed heat of the forge.
Each spark was a tiny, fleeting life, a flicker of vibrant defiance against the darkness, and for the first time all day, he felt something other than a dull echo of his friend's sorrow.
The three eventually regrouped near the village well in the center of the square, their individual missions met with varying degrees of failure.
Low held the warm pies, but knew it wasn't enough.
Jacqueline carried nothing but her own disappointment.
It was Zombiel who saw it first.
His gaze, drawn from the forge, drifted to a thick wooden notice board hammered into the ground next to the well.
It was cluttered with old notices: advertisements for lost goats, schedules for the river ferry, a decree about taxes.
But one piece of parchment was new, tacked carelessly over the corner of an older announcement.
He walked towards it and, without a word, pointed a single, pale finger.
"What is it, Sparky?" Low asked, moving to stand beside him. Jacqueline followed, her brow furrowed with curiosity.
The parchment was fresh, the ink a stark, official black.
At the top, a crudely rendered but instantly recognizable charcoal sketch depicted a boy with wild, unruly hair, wide, intense eyes, and a sword that looked like it was made of twisted roots.
Jacqueline's breath hitched. Low's blood ran cold.
Below the sketch, the words were sharp and terrifyingly clear.
WANTED
LEONOTIS
For Crimes Against the Crown, Espionage, and Malicious Destruction of State Property.
20,000 GOLD SOVEREIGNS
The cheerful sounds of the market square faded into a dull, distant roar.
For a long moment, they could only stare, the words burning themselves into their minds.
They knew Leonotis had a bounty—but twenty thousand gold sovereigns.
It was a fortune, enough to make every farmer with a pitchfork, every desperate traveler, every town guard in the kingdom a potential enemy.
The shock was a physical blow, knocking the wind from their lungs.
They weren't just grieving children hiding in a sleepy village.
They were fugitives.
They were prey.
And the amount of the bounty would make anyone a hunter.