I stepped closer, careful not to cross the stone ring without permission. The silver pool shimmered, and the hairs on my arms lifted. It felt like it was watching me. Waiting.
“What does it do?” I asked.
Daniel’s hand found mine, warm and steady. “It listens.”
“To what?”
“To the truth,” he said quietly. “To what you are under all the noise.”
My chest tightened. “That’s… unsettling.”
“It’s not gentle,” Daniel admitted. “My mother said the Wellspring doesn’t care what you want. It only cares what’s real.”
He squeezed my hand once. “So if you step in there, don’t lie.”
I stared at the silver pool, at the faint pulse under its surface like a slow heartbeat.
Then I looked at Daniel.
“You’re not stepping in,” I said.
Daniel’s brow lifted. “Excuse me?”
“You brought me here,” I said, voice steady even though my pulse was not. “You said it was yours. And your mother’s.” I swallowed. “If anyone steps into something like that… it should be you first.”
For a second, Daniel looked like he didn’t know what to do with that. Like he wasn’t used to someone caring about his boundaries more than their own curiosity.
Then his expression softened into something dangerous and tender.
“You’re going to ruin me.”
“I’m already doing that,” I said, and the quiet honesty of it surprised me.
Daniel huffed a laugh, then stepped forward to the stone ring.
He didn’t enter.
He knelt.
Pressed his palm to the ground like he was greeting the forest the way he’d greeted the trees.
The air shifted again.
The pool brightened.
Silver light rose in thin ribbons, curling around Daniel’s wrist like it knew his blood. Like it had been waiting for him to acknowledge it.
Daniel closed his eyes.
And I felt it—like a low hum under my skin, a frequency just below hearing.
The Wellspring answered him.
Not with words. Withmemory.
The silver ribbons pulsed once, and the air filled with a smell that made my throat tighten instantly.
Pine sap.
