“Do it.”
“Kaelren, wait.” Peeble flew to hover in front of me. “There’s more you need to understand. About the other iterations. About why you always fail.”
I waited.
“In every previous timeline, this is where you split up. You send your team to rescue Elle while you stay here to guard the seed. And every single time, Auradelle captures your team, turns Elle into his vessel, and claims the seed while you’re too far away to stop it.” Peeble’s voice carried layers of grief. “You can’t divide your forces. You can’t try to do both. You have tochoose.”
“That’s not a choice. That’s a trap.”
“Yes. It is. It’s the trap that’s held for now for seventeen iterations because you’ve always chosen wrong. You’ve always tried to be in two places at once, to save everyone, to control everything.” They flew closer to eye level. “This time, you need to do something different. This time, you need to trust.”
“Trust what?”
“That Eltrien can seal this. That your team can hold the tunnels. That Elle can survive long enough for you to reach her.” Peeble paused. “Trust that you don’t have to do everything alone.”
I looked at Eltrien. “You’re certain you can seal it?”
“I’ve done it before,” he said quietly. “Sixteen times before, in fact. It’s never held because you always stayed to guard it physically. This time, you need to let the magic do the work and go save her.”
Every instinct I had screamed against it. Leave the seed unguarded? Trust that magic alone would protect it? What if Auradelle had some way past Eltrien’s wards? What if guards found this chamber while we were gone? What if—
But those what-ifs were the same ones that had played out sixteen times before. Sixteen iterations where I’d tried to control everything, protect everything, be everywhere at once. Sixteen failures.
Elle was suffering right now. Every second I delayed was another second of her pain. And she’d trusted me enough to tell me about this place, trusted me to make the right choice.
“Do it,” I said, the words harder to force out than I’d expected. “Seal the chamber.”
“Kaelren,” Peeble said softly. “You understand what this means? If Eltrien seals the seed, Auradelle will know someone’s been here. He’ll know you’re coming.”
“Good,” I said, letting corruption spread up to my throat. “I want him to know.”
Through the bond, I felt Elle’s pain spike again—but underneath it,something else. Recognition. Understanding. She knew I was close.
“Hold on, love,”I sent with every ounce of power I had. “Almost there.”
And through the muffling, through the suppression, I felt her response. Four words that made my corruption sing.
“Come kill this bastard.”
We rested near the seed chamber while Eltrien worked his magic. The sealing took hours—layers of protection, wards that would hold until the Convergence forced them open. By the time he finished, he looked exhausted, his marks dimmer.
“It’s done,” he said. “No one can access this until the boundaries thin.”
“Good.” I stood, every muscle protesting. “Then we move.”
“Kaelren, wait.” Peeble landed on my shoulder. “There’s something else you need to know. About me. About what I am.”
I waited.
“I’m not just a Celestial Sentinel. I’m not just the first Elle transformed. I’m also a warning.” They paused. “In the first iteration, I tried to control the power. Tried to use the Bloom to enforce peace, to create order, to save everyone. The Crown saw that and built their entire hierarchy on my mistake. They saw me bond with the Bloom and thought, ‘we can control this too.’”
“So the rot—”
“Is the Root’s recoil. Every time someone tries to control the Bloom instead of letting it grow naturally, the Root pulls back. And that pulling back feels like disease.” Peeble’s wings vibrated. “The realm isn’t dying because someone failed to control the power. It’s dying because someone keeps trying.”
“Then what’s the solution?”
“Let go. When the Convergence comes, when they try to make Elle the bridge between Root and Bloom—don’t let her be a bridge. Don’t let her be a vessel. Let the Seed flower naturally. Let everything wild and patient break free of the cage they built around it.”
