“I’m not doing anything.” He closed the locket but didn’t put it away. “This is what you were meant to be. What your grandmother refused to become.”
He began to pace, and where he stepped, small flowers sprouted and immediately withered. “She could have been the bridge. Could have held both worlds in balance. Instead, she chose love. Chose your grandfather. Chose to let the compact fragment and decay rather than accept her responsibility.”
“Good for her,” I managed through gritted teeth.
“Is it? Look at the result. You, bearing marks that are killing you without proper control. Kaelren, carved into a weapon that’s consuming itself. Two halves of what should have been whole, both destroying yourselves because she was too selfish to accept her role.”
“Or maybe,” I said, forcing myself to stand straighter despite the pain in my ribs and the burning in my marks, meeting his eyes with defiance I didn’t entirely feel, “she was smart enough to know that some roles aren’t worth accepting. That some prophecies are better broken than fulfilled. That maybe people should get to choose their own destinies instead of having them carved into their skin.”
He studied me for a long moment, and I saw disappointment in his face. Real, genuine disappointment.
“You really don’t understand yet, do you? This isn’t about prophecy or destiny. This is about survival. Mathematics. Inevitability.” He moved to the wall, pressing his hand against it, and I could see through the semi-translucent surface to the world outside—Wynmire dying, Earth fading, both worlds bleeding into each other through widening cracks.
“The Root chose you because you’re strong enough to bear what’s coming. Strong enough to channel the power needed to fuse the worlds properly. Not destructively, not chaotically, but with purpose. With design.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then both worlds die slowly instead of being reborn quickly.” He turned back to me. “I tried to force this with Kaelren. Trained him from childhood to be the perfect vessel, presented him to the Bloom knowing it would accept him. But it rejected him. Violently. Publicly. So he carved those marks into himself, trying to force what wouldn’t come naturally. But forced marks corrupt. They consume instead of creating. The experiment failed.”
“He’s not a failure,” I said, heat in my voice.
“No? Then why is his corruption spreading faster every day? Why does he look at you like you’re salvation and damnation combined? Why can’t he stay away from you even though proximity to your marks accelerates his decay?” He moved closer, and I could smell old books and funeral flowers and something medicinal. “He knows what he is—a mistake I’m going to correct through you.”
“By doing what? Forcing me through some ritual?”
“No.” His smile was terrible in its certainty. “By letting your natural marks do what they were designed to do. By feeding them the right catalyst at the right moment. By making you bloom, Elle Hawthorne, in ways your grandmother never could.”
He gestured, and guards entered—Bloomguards, but different from the ones I’d seen before. These looked like they’d been changed by prolonged exposure to the Heartspire itself. Their armor had fused with their skin in places, crystal and flesh merging into something that made my stomachturn. Their faces were almost normal until you looked closely and realized their eyes reflected light wrong, their mouths opened at odd angles, their hands had too many joints.
“Take her to the ritual chamber,” he commanded, his voice carrying harmonics that made my teeth ache. “It’s time to begin.”
They grabbed me with hands that felt like stone and bone combined, their touch leaving marks that burned cold. I fought, kicked and bit and tried to summon any power I could through the restraints. One of them I caught where the knee should be, and something cracked, but the guard didn’t even slow down.
My split lip opened again, blood running down my chin. The cracked rib screamed with every movement.
“Oh,” Auradelle said as they carried me past him, his voice conversational, “I should mention—your friends will arrive just in time for the Convergence. Silverpine Hollow to here, pushing hard with whatever forces they can muster. They’re making better time than I expected, considering the obstacles I’ve placed in their path.”
I stopped struggling, my whole body going still. “What?”
“Did you think I didn’t want them to come? This only works with both halves present. You to be the vessel, Kaelren to be the final catalyst. His corrupted marks calling to your pure ones. The failed experiment and the successful one, joining to create something unprecedented.”
“You’re using me as bait.”
“I’m using you as what you are—the key to everything. Your friends’ arrival is just… convenient timing.” His golden marks pulsed brighter. “This gives us time for several preparatory sessions. I want you properly conditioned for what’s to come. Your marks need to spread further, your connection to the Root needs to deepen, your resistance needs to… soften.”
“Fuck you.”
“Such spirit. Your grandmother had that too, until the very end.” He smiled, and it was almost sad. “I wonder if you’ll break the same way she did, or if you’ll find new ways to shatter.”
As the guards dragged me away, their bony hands leaving frost burns onmy arms, he called after me, “Don’t worry about the pain, child. By the time Kaelren arrives, you’ll barely remember what it felt like to be merely human.”
The door slammed shut behind us, and I was carried deeper into the Heartspire’s living corridors, toward whatever nightmare he’d prepared for me.
The guards’ grip tightened as we descended into darkness, and I felt my marks pulse in response—not with pain this time, but with something that felt almost like anticipation.
The Heartspire recognized what I was becoming.
And it was hungry for it.
