Night lingered like a bruise over the Heartgrove.
The light in the roots had dimmed to a steady pulse, faint enough to hide the shapes that swayed between the trees. Aric led the others out beneath a sky half-veiled by mist, the glow beneath his armor ebbing with each breath. The air still smelled of sap and lightning.
No one spoke for a long while. Only the quiet rustle of vines followed them, as if the forest still listened.
Eira broke the silence first. "Your vitals are off the charts. The shard's resonance is—"
"—the same as the grove's," Aric finished. He could feel it thrumming behind his ribs. "It's quieter now. But it's still there."
Brann trudged beside him, the butt of his lance leaving dents in the wet soil. "You're glowing through the seams of your armor. If that's quiet, I'd hate to see loud."
Serae's voice was softer. "He's right. The jungle's following your pulse."
She wasn't wrong. Leaves turned toward him when he passed; vines loosened their coils, sensing something familiar. Aric ignored it and kept walking until the trees began to thin and the glow of Eryndra Hold's wall-roots shimmered ahead.
---
The gate-watchers stared as they entered. Hunters whispered from balconies above—half awe, half fear. Aric didn't look at them. He went straight to the Hall.
Keeper Solen awaited, the moss in his robes still damp from rain. "So it's true," he said. "The Heartgrove lives again." His gaze lingered on the faint light in Aric's veins. "And it lives through you."
"It called," Aric replied. "I answered."
Solen frowned. "Do you even hear yourself? You speak like a priest of the old Concord."
Eira set her pack down with a thud. "We should be studying this, not accusing him. The resonance field is stabilizing across the region. Whatever happened out there stopped the decay."
Solen's expression hardened. "Or postponed it. That thing inside him could turn the Hold to dust if it decides to breathe wrong."
When he gestured for his guards, the runes carved into the floor flashed. Every lantern in the hall flickered in response to Aric's heartbeat. The guards froze, weapons trembling in their hands.
Eira's voice cut through the hum. "You see? He's stabilizing the network. The lattice recognizes him."
Solen stepped back, uneasy. "Then may the lattice keep him far from my city."
---
They left the hall to a chorus of whispers. Outside, rain had returned—fine, cold, whispering through the canopy. Aric stared into it until the ripples on the puddles matched the beat under his skin.
Serae joined him under the overhang. "You could've burned him down for that insult."
He shook his head. "No need. The forest already heard."
She studied him for a moment. "Are you still you, Aric?"
He met her gaze. "I'm still hunting. That's enough."
Behind them, Eira's instruments crackled to life with new data. "The lattice is moving," she said, eyes wide. "Resonance threads are shifting north—mountain direction. Something's drawing energy away from the Expanse."
Brann groaned. "Another wound?"
Eira nodded. "A big one. Old Concord records called it the Cradle. Whatever's happening started there."
Solen would have forbidden the journey, but the hunters didn't wait for his leave. By dawn their packs were ready.
---
The jungle met them at the threshold, heavy with mist. As they passed beyond the wall, the light of the Hold dimmed behind them until it was only a glow through fog. The rain thickened into curtains. Aric felt the shard quicken, each pulse echoing far below his feet.
Brann muttered, "I hate it when the ground feels alive."
"It always was," Aric said. "We just forgot to notice."
For a while they followed the ridge north. The forest here had changed: trunks bent toward the same unseen point, their branches pointing like compass needles. Eira's scanner sputtered from overload. "The network's reorganizing itself. You're the focal point."
Aric didn't answer. His senses had sharpened beyond sight and sound. He could feel the hum beneath the soil, the slow breathing of roots stretching for leagues, converging toward a single rhythm. When he closed his eyes, the darkness behind them shimmered with threads of light—veins of energy snaking through the world toward something vast.
Then the vision deepened.
---
He stood on a plain of endless crystal, suspended in void. Above him hung thousands of glowing spheres, each pulsing with a different color, connected by silver filaments that hummed with life. Beneath his feet, the network spread like a map of living veins.
A voice, deep and patient, rose from everywhere.
You walk the memory of the world.
"Who are you?" Aric asked, though he already knew.
The heart that sleeps beneath your steps. The Core of Nareth.
He saw it then—a silhouette in the dark, larger than continents, bound in chains of light that pulsed with each of his heartbeats.
The Beastworn were my answer to forgetting, the voice said. They carried my breath when the Concord fell. Now my song finds you.
The light of the spheres flared, searing white. Wake them.
---
He gasped awake to find the others crouched beside him. Eira pressed a damp cloth to his forehead. "You collapsed. You were burning like a forge."
"I saw it," he said hoarsely. "The Core. It's alive—and it's calling."
Brann's brow furrowed. "Calling what?"
"Us."
The jungle trembled, a distant rumble rolling beneath them. Leaves shivered; flocks of bright birds rose screaming into the sky. The pulse through the soil quickened.
Eira looked north. "The mountains."
Aric rose, feeling the resonance settle inside him like a second heartbeat. "The Cradle's waking. If we wait, it'll swallow everything."
Serae adjusted her bowstring, resigned but steady. "Then we don't wait."
Brann sighed. "And here I was hoping for a quiet week."
Aric smiled faintly, a rare, human thing amid the hum of gods and monsters. "Quiet's over."
They turned toward the ridge. The first light of dawn spilled through the canopy, painting their armor gold and green. Each step they took sent a tremor through the living ground, as if the world itself were listening to their march.
Far below, deep within the veins of the earth, the Core stirred again—and in its slow, dreaming pulse, four small heartbeats answered.
---
End of Chapter 7 — The Call of the Core