The earth shifts underfoot—no danger, no threat.
Just acknowledgement.
“Yes,” I say roughly. “Come. The Rite awaits.”
I lead her back inside, our hands still joined. Brianne has lit more glow globes in the corridor; they dim as we pass, then brighten behind us, like a trail of quiet stars.
We descend a spiraling staircase carved inside the rock. The air cools, thickens with the scent of damp stone and old roots.
At the bottom, a wide archway opens into the heart of The Barrow.
My own personal arboretum.
I have not stood there in a long while.
Not since the last day the Prime stood here with me.
He’d summoned us all to witness his vow to the realm itself.
No viyella stood at his side.
The crown chose him alone, and in his solitude he swore to hold Nightfall together.
He failed.
We all did.
The memory scrapes like shale along my spine as we step through the arch.
The arboretum, officially known as the Chamber of Earth, is vast.
A circular cavern open to the sky through a single enormous skylight far above, where the clouds swirl directly overhead.
Moonlight—pale bone white all around—pours down in a soft, divided beam.
At the center of the chamber grows an elder tree older than The Barrow itself.
Its trunk is thick and gnarled, roots thrust deep into the stone floor before spreading outward like the fingers of a titanic hand. Fat blossoms of soft white crowd the lower branches, glowing faintly where stray drops of heart-sap bead along the bark.
Around the base of the tree, lush purple grass spreads in a soft, thick carpet. It sways in a breeze that does not touch our hair.
The earth is very awake here.
Alina stops dead, eyes wide.
“Holy…” She trails off, then laughs weakly. “I am so out of my league.”
“Impossible,” I say. “You stand in the oldest heart of my lands, and the roots do not reject you. That is no small thing, sweet Oona.”
Her gaze traces the blossoms, the grass, the shaft of moonlight.
“Will there be witnesses?” she asks softly. “For the ceremony?”
My jaw tightens.
Tradition would say yes.
Ministers. Stewards. Elders.
