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His cheek brushed the crown of my head. “I’m here. Find me before you open yourself.”

I closed my eyes and reached inward, through the new bond. His presence met mine instantly, cool, distinct, and immovable against the chaotic current of the earth. I followed the tether toward him, feeling the certainty of his devotion. Then I traced it back to my own mind, memorizing the path between us.

His hold tightened when I nodded. I pressed my free hand deeper into the moss. I didn’t speak. I simply pushed my intent down into the soil.

“Someone brought murder into this house. Show me the rot.”

The current rose beneath my fingers to meet me. I dropped the barriers in my mind and let it rush in.

The first surge nearly shattered me.

My arm jerked violently. Eryx held me fast, his grip iron-tight. For a terrifying second, I could think only of ripping my hand free from the dirt. I hadn’t expected the force of it to hurt so quickly.

“Thalia, can you hear me?”

“I can hear you.” I swallowed hard, fighting down the rising panic. “Keep holding me. I haven’t lost you.”

I opened the gates farther.

The current drove straight up my arm and flooded my chest. The Endless Forests welcomed me. It was an overwhelming embrace of infinite life. I felt sap rising in the ancient pines miles beyond the wall, roots splitting bedrock, billions of seeds straining against the frost.

My sense of self blurred. The distinction between my own lungs and the rustling leaves of the canopy dissolved. It was an agonizing, ecstatic pressure. I could simply let go, scatter my awareness into the soil, and drift forever in the deafening hum of the earth.

“Thalia.”

Eryx’s presence spiked through the bond. It was a single, piercing note of cold cutting through the roaring noise of the forest. I seized it, grateful and terrified at once. For a moment, I’d wanted nothing except to dissolve. Our bond reminded me I had a body to return to.

I drove my will deeper into the surging current. “Show me the rot.”

The magic of the Forests shifted my focus, pulling me relentlessly through the network of life.

My fingers cramped in the moss. It felt distant, almost irrelevant. I knew a hand was hurting, but I was also inside the roots beneath it. “Thalia,” a voice whispered, and this time, it was not Eryx’s.

Then, the earth dragged me toward a jagged wound. A burst of heat struck me.

It was wrong. I knew the warmth of growing things, the fierce response of a body mending its flesh. This heat devoured. Roots recoiled in agony beneath scorched soil. Green leaves curled and blackened into ash before they could even fall.

I tried to pull back from it. The Forests forced me closer. “Thalia. You asked. See now, your answer.”

Smoke filled a place where I had no lungs. I coughed anyway, and I was distantly aware of my body convulsing against Eryx’s arms. The current dragged me through the woods toward a packed dirt road I knew.

The timber council hall flashed into my mind. Then my father’s cottage. One by one, I saw the houses I’d known since childhood.

Melia.

Thick black smoke rolled across our small market. Screams echoed, and pain tore through my chest. I was still sitting at Petrion, but I was also in the burning village. I was tasting the ash, feeling the terror of lives being hunted and crushed.

“Thalia, come back toward me. Please. I’m losing you.”

I couldn’t leave. I felt my people scattered and terrified. The earth was screaming as thundering hooves beat against the soil.

A thatched roof gave way. The collapse echoed through the earth, a jarring impact that rattled my teeth. Sparks blew across the dirt road. This was not a memory. This was happening now.

I tried to ask the roots who was bringing the fire, but the deafening voice of the Forests drove every other thought from my mind. The command went beyond any plea I could make. It was a desperate, inescapable compulsion.

“Go to Melia. The earth is bleeding.”

The force of the warning threatened to drown me.