This is why I felt it. This is what was calling me.
“We need to go inside.”
Kaia blinks, turning to look at me. “…Inside?”
I rub my forehead. The certainty is giving me a headache — pressing against my skull like something trying to get out. “I don’t know how I know. I just do.”
I’ve never felt anything like this before. Not with my ice, not with my connection to Absentia, not with anything. It’s like something inside me is waking up. Reaching toward the tree like it recognizes home.
Kaia doesn’t question me. She just nods and turns back to the trunk.
She circles it slowly, her hand trailing along the bark. The shadows follow her — Linda hovering at her shoulder, Carl tumbling at her feet.
Then Bob appears.
He materializes at the base of the trunk, posture rigid, edges sharp with purpose. He’s not guarding. He’s… directing.
He nudges Kaia’s hand. Insistent. Specific.
She follows his guidance, her palm sliding across the bark until it finds something beneath the frost.
A rune.
A spiral shape carved deep into the wood, frosted over but faintly glowing. Her palm fits perfectly against it, like it was made for her.
She looks at me.
I nod.
She presses.
The entire trunk shifts.
A seam appears in the bark — hairline at first, then widening. Frost cracks and falls away like shed skin. The wood splits open in a soft gasp of cold air, ancient and clean.
A doorway forms.
Wide. Dark. Descending.
Spiral stairs wind down into the earth, carved from the same pale wood as the tree itself. Blue light flickers along the walls, pulsing gently, alive.
A breath of crisp, winter-clean air rises from within. It smells like snow and stone and something older than memory.
I exhale shakily.
“There,” I whisper. “That’s why I felt it.”
Kaia meets my eyes. There’s no doubt in her expression. No hesitation.
“Then let’s go.”
Chapter 25
Finn
The stairs spiral down forever.
Or at least it feels that way — step after step carved from pale wood, descending into the earth beneath the impossible tree. Lanterns flare to life as we pass, soft pink light blooming like flowers waking up, and I can’t shake the feeling that the walls are watching us.
