The air smelled of moss and honey-water. Light scattered across the pool, gilding the mist like molten gold. It was so achingly familiar that for a heartbeat she was a child again, hiding behind her mother’s skirts, listening to her hum while flowers bloomed from sound.
“My mother,” Alora whispered. “Used to make the flowers dance. They would come to life with her magic and grow whenever she would sing…”
“You are her daughter,” Caelum murmured. “I imagine your magic is much like hers, too.”
Alora reached out hesitantly, and her fingertips touched the leaves.
Nothing happened.
Magic may live in her veins, but she hadn’t learned how to weave spells.
Alora closed her eyes, going back to the time she was happy. To when magic used to mean hope instead of fear.
Her mother hummed as flowers unfurled beneath her fingertips and Alora watched with awe.
When you are lost, our song will always lead the way, my sweet bloom. The spirits call you home.
A gust of wind swept through the cavern, filling Alora’s lungs.
And she began to sing.
The first note trembled out of her like a breath she’d been holding for years. It was fragile at first, but the cave carried it gently, shaping it into something ancient and whole.
It wasn’t merely a song, it was a melody of the wilds. A thread woven from memory and blood and something older than language. As her voice rose through the cavern, the sapling shuddered beneath her hand.
And she remembered, this was the song of the Midlands.
A soft groan echoed from deep within the earth, low and ancient, as if the mountain itself were holding its breath.
She touched the sapling again and a faint glow vibrated beneath her palm.
The roots split stone with a slow crack, the stem enlarging into a trunk, rising inch by inch, unfurling into a spiral of gleaming bark and golden leaves.
Behind her, Caelum stood frozen, staring at the blooming tree as though he had stumbled upon a miracle.
As the melody poured from her, the air thickened. The light from the sapling vibrated as it grew into a majestic tree, golden veins threading through its bark.
Then, deep inside her chest, the bond shivered awake. A spark whooshed down the thread that tied her to Rune. His alarm and ripple of fury and alarm crashed against her ribs.
He knew.
Alora’s voice faltered for half a breath, but she kept singing, her magic rising with each note. The wind brushed her cheek with a whisper she hadn’t heard in fifteen years.
It was Salvia’s voice, warm and familiar.
But it wasn’t her mother singing.
It washer.
And the lullaby was calling her to the forest.
CHAPTER 35
Rune
Rune shifted in his chair, impatience gnawing through his composure. The Harbingers sat along the crescent table, their silence thick and uneasy. All pretended they hadn’t witnessed his shadows recoil from Alora’s light.
The war room was a sanctum of stone. The curved wall behind him bore a map carved with broken borders and old scars of conquest. The table itself resembled an altar more than a seat of council, its center etched with continents and seas that still remembered the weight of blood.
