“The Verdant Strata,” I say, gesturing. “The upper tiers are healing gardens and food crops. The middle hold orchards, herbs, and root beds. The lowest are the quarry edges and clay pits. The Marches feed half the realm and rebuild what the wars break.”
Her fingers tighten slightly around mine.
“The trees,” she breathes.
I follow her gaze.
Scattered along the terraces, the great root-trees rise—trunks shot through with veins of pale, luminous sap.
Their branches spread wide, leaves whispering in a wind that barely touches our skin.
Glowing drops slide along the bark, pooling where branches meet trunk, then sinking slowly inward.
“They’re glowing,” she murmurs. “Like… like bioluminescence. Only… not.”
“It is the heart-sap,” I explain. “It carries magic from the deep roots to the canopy. The Dreamwrights use it in their work. The sap sings of what the land has seen.”
“Sings,” she says, eyes wide. “You mean that literally, don’t you?”
“Yes.” I angle my head, listening. “If you listen, perhaps you can hear the roots hum beneath the dirt.”
She frowns slightly, concentrating.
The wind falls away.
The sounds of the household fade. For a moment, there is only the two of us and the slow, steady beat of the Marches underfoot.
Then her breath catches.
“Oh.”
The sound she makes is soft. Reverent.
“What do you hear?” I ask quietly.
“It’s like a-a bass note,” she whispers. “Low. Steady. A purr? No, more like a drone like the sound a worker bee makes. It’s not unpleasant. It’s grounding. Like when you put your hand on a running engine and feel it vibrating through your bones. Only this is everywhere.”
I allow myself a smile.
“The land approves of you,” I say. “It speaks louder when you are near. I have not felt it so calm in a very long time.”
She swallows.
“Is that good?”
“It is necessary,” I say, and this time there is no hiding the truth. “Nightfall is cracking. The Marches feel every fault. With you here, the fractures do not vanish—but they seem to hold.”
I turn to face her fully.
“You are steady in ways I am not.”
Her gaze meets mine.
Something in it is soft and fierce at once.
“I’ve spent my whole life studying how things break,” she says quietly. “Maybe it’s time I learn how to help them hold.”
The words punch straight through my ribcage.
