“Alright, Kevin, time to be heroes,” I muttered. “Or at least heroically nosy. Lysandra’s vision said there’s something only we can discover. No pressure or anything—just the fate of two realms hanging on my devastatingly handsome compound eyes spotting something important.”
The truth was, back at Silverpine, I’d thought my moment had finally come. When Lysandra—that ethereal, impossibly beautiful creature with eyes like winter frost and skin that was the same shade of blue on a perfect sunny day—had approached me during the planning sessions, my heart had done acrobatics. She’d leaned in close, her voice low and intimate, and asked if we could speak somewhere private.
Private. The word had sent my imagination into overdrive. Finally, I’d thought. Finally, someone sees beyond the jokes and the sonic magic to the dashing, charming, incredibly modest specimen of—
“I need to tell you about a vision,” she’d said once we were alone.
Oh.
She’d proceeded to absolutely demolish any romantic notions I’d been harboring, explaining in that maddeningly detached way seers had that I was crucial to some cosmic plan. That when we reached the tunnels, I’d need to slip away from the group without anyone—especially Kaelren—knowing. That if I didn’t, if they tried to stop me or come with me, everyone would be doomed.
“You’ll find something,” she’d said, gripping my shoulder with fingers that were ice cold—like her heart, apparently. “Something that changes everything. I can’t see what it is—the vision clouds there—but I see you finding it. I see you warning them. I see you being more than anyone expects.”
“And the kiss?” I’d asked hopefully. “The vision definitely included a kiss at the end, right? As a reward for my bravery?”
She’d just looked at me like I had grown two heads, and walked away.
Not even a consolation kiss for the betrayal I was about to commit. For leaving my crew at the entrance to the most dangerous mission of their lives, making them think I’d abandoned them when really I was… what? Following the vague instructions of a beautiful seer who couldn’t even tell me what I was looking for?
“The convergence depends on what you find,” she’d said before leaving me standing there with my crushed hopes and bruised ego.
We landed on one of the outer ramparts, Kevin shrinking down to about housecat size—adorable but still deadly. The stone was old here, older than the corruption, carved with runes that predated the separation of the realms. I could feel them humming under my feet, a vibration that made my extra joints ache.
“Act natural,” I whispered to Kevin.
He buzzed something that definitely meantWe’re a bug person and a bee on a fortress wall. Nothing about this is natural.
“Natural is overrated anyway,” I murmured back, creeping forward with the kind of grace that came from having six major joints per limb. “Besides, have you seen how I walk? Poetry in motion. Disturbing, unsettling poetry that makes people uncomfortable, but still poetry.”
The first thing that hit me wasn’t the sight but the smell. It crawled up my antennae and made my whole body want to revolt. This wasn’t natural decay—this was engineered putrefaction, deliberate and purposeful. It smelled like someone had taken everything wrong with the world, distilled it down to its essence, and then decided to make it worse.
The channels carved into the Heartspire’s walls glowed with that sick green light that meant Bloom magic had gone necrotic. But there was a pattern to them, a deliberate architecture of corruption that spoke of years of planning. Someone had designed this. Someone had carved these channels with specific purposes in mind.
“Sweet Root and Bloom,” I whispered, following the channels with my multifaceted gaze. They created a network through the entire structure, like veins carrying disease instead of life. “They’re not just letting it happen—they’re cultivating it. That’s… actually kind of impressive in a deeply disturbing way.”
I needed to get closer. Creeping along the wall, I stayed low, using my extra joints to contort in ways that would make a contortionist weep with envy. My compound eyes let me track movement in every direction—guards patrolling in patterns that were almost mechanical in their precision, shadows shifting in doorways, and… wait.
Those channels weren’t just carrying one type of magic.
I paused, antennae twitching as I focused. The green corruption was obvious, but underneath it, threading through it like golden wire through rotted cloth, was something else. Something that made my whole body tingle with recognition.
“Root magic,” I breathed. But not corrupted Root, not twisted Root—pure Root magic being fed directly into the corruption. The two powers that were supposed to be separate, that the whole realm was built on keeping separate, were being deliberately mixed. “Oh, that’s not good. That’s very, very not good.”
My mind raced through the implications. Root and Bloom were never meant to mix directly—that’s why marked ones were so rare, why the Convergence only happened once a generation, why the realms had been separated in the first place. Mixing them artificially… it was like mixing matter and antimatter, except instead of an explosion, you got… what? What were they trying to create?
Which was when I saw them—Bloomguard dipping their weapons into the channels, coating blades and arrows with the mixture. The metal didn’t corrode or reject it. Instead, the weapons seemed to drink it in, gleaming with a sick light that hurt to look at directly.
“They’re weaponizing it,” I said, horror and fascination warring in my chest. “They’re literally using both powers against each other. That’s… that’s brilliant and terrifying and completely insane.”
I watched as a guard tested one of the treated blades on a training dummy. The dummy didn’t just get cut—it dissolved at the point of contact, spreading outward like aggressive cancer until there was nothing left but ash that smelled of roses and rot.
“You there! Stop!”
I froze. Not one, not two, but five Bloomguard had spotted me, their armor gleaming with that pearl-and-poison sheen that meant they were elite. But instead of panicking, I felt a grin spread across my face. This was more my speed.
“Oh, hello there!” I called out cheerfully, straightening to my full height—all six feet of wiry insectoid hybrid swagger. “Lovely evening for a patrol, isn’t it? Though between you and me, the décor could use some work. All this doom and gloom—have you considered some nice pastels? Maybe a throw pillow or two? I know a guy who does wonderful work with cursed tapestries. Very reasonable rates.”
The lead guard’s hand went to her sword. “Identify yourself.”
