Eryshae

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Mira

The chalice was warm in her hands. Sculpted of greenstone, shaped like a blooming flower with thorn-wrapped roots for a stem, it pulsed faintly with the heat of sacred fire and incense. It smelled of rosewood, blood-orange resin, and cedar ash; burnt offerings from centuries past, rising again in the smoke.

Mira bowed as she received it from the Seer. But her thoughts were not on the crowd. Nor the procession. They were on what hung against her skin.

And the pendant around Mira's neck began to warm. She felt it even before her fingers touched the clasp. Amber. A shard of it; twisted, black-veined, alive with a whispering heat. The Titan's Amber. A relic carved from the fallen seat of Deus himself.

"It remembers the weight of dominion. The hunger to shape the world." Ruwan's voice echoed through her mind like smoke through leaves. She could feel it now, pulsing faintly with recognition.

Let the flame reveal Sam turning into a monster.

They were nearly to the Temple Grove now. The stones ahead began to glow with druidic sigils, luminous threads winding through the grass like veins of light. Mira kept her pace steady. One hand still held the ceremonial chalice aloft. The other, unnoticed beneath her silks, slipped the pendant from her throat.

The Amber thrummed faintly, like a caged breath waiting to be exhaled. Mira paused just before the final steps. For a moment, she stood still beneath the open sky, watching the way Vael turned toward Sam; how their eyes met.

It was not grand. Not theatrical. It was human. And Mira hated how much it shook her. She bowed her head as the crowd erupted into cheers, Mira slipped the pendant from around her neck and held it for a long breath. The crystal casing caught the sun. For a moment, it flared gold, as if the amber remembered light.

Then; without hesitation; she dropped it into the chalice. It did not sink. It floated in the sacred liquid, spinning gently like a compass needle, then slowly settling upright as if recognizing the ceremony itself.

The incense flared; just once. A sharper note. Cedar and lightning. But the crowd didn't notice. Only Mira felt it. The shift. The breathless anticipation. The echo of something watching.

Sam and Vael waved, unaware of what had been added to their path. And in that moment, Mira's mind snapped backward to a night lit by torchfire and screams.

She had been twenty. Training with four others in the orchard ring. The wind had smelled like wet roots and blood. Ruwan had summoned them one by one, his voice cool as the stone floor beneath their knees.

"Today," he had said, "we test resilience… and obedience." He handed Kaeli, the eldest trainee, a sliver of amber. No larger than a thumbnail. Still veined with that black shimmer. Still whispering.

"Place it beneath your tongue," he said. "Let it taste you." Mira had watched Kaeli hesitate. Only for a breath. Then the girl obeyed. At first; nothing. A blink. A shiver. Her breath steamed in the cold air. Then the roots burst from her back.

They tore through her training cloak like bone through silk; twisting, coiling, dragging bark across skin. Her mouth opened in a scream that turned to a roar halfway through, and then; Kaeli wasn't Kaeli anymore.

She was motion. Writhing bark and clawed limbs and howling hunger. Her body fractured into blooming violence. Every living thing nearby fled or died. They barely subdued her.

Mira had flung two knives into Kaeli's chest before the trainers arrived. Even then, the girl didn't fall. Not until Ruwan pressed his hand to her brow and whispered a word that made the air curdle. The body collapsed into ash. And Ruwan had simply turned to them and said, "some roots grow too fast. But the soil remembers." Mira never forgot.

And now… she had just dropped the same relic into a ceremonial vessel, on the holiest day of the year. For a heartbeat, her legs refused to move. But then she remembered Vael's smile. Sam's laugh. Ruwan's voice: You're not a ghost anymore. And Mira walked on.

Mira adjusted her grip.

The chalice no longer felt warm; it felt alive. The amber stirred the liquid gently, but it did not dissolve. It did not change. It simply waited. Like a question posed to the soul of the world.

Each step toward the Temple Grove felt heavier than the last. The crowd thickened, pressing in on either side of the procession, shouting praise and names, throwing garlands into the air. Golden petals caught in Mira's hair and clung to her sleeves like confetti from a divine celebration.

And all the while, the chalice pulsed in her hands. Not visibly. Not audibly. But felt; a whisper of rhythm echoing beneath her skin, like the slow, deliberate heartbeat of judgment.

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They entered the Grove. The trees here grew in spiral formations, their branches arching high and tangled, woven with ribbons, bird-shaped lanterns, and sunstones that refracted pale firelight. The air was cooler beneath the canopy, laced with incense, moss, and the quiet hush of anticipation.

Drummers ceased. Voices fell. And the only sound was the wind moving through leaves like a giant exhale.

Vael stepped forward first, her ceremonial cloak trailing like falling leaves. Sam followed her, his eyes bright; but Mira saw the shadow in his jawline, the tightness behind his smile.

He felt something too. The Grove recognized them. The Guardian was near. Mira stood at the base of the raised platform, holding the chalice like an acolyte bearing flame. The Seer gestured, slow and silent, and she ascended the steps.

Her feet felt far away. The chalice heavy as stone. She kept her expression still, kept her hands from trembling; though her wrists ached from the effort.

Vael turned. Their eyes met. And something in Mira softened. The sliver of amber stirred. Mira broke the gaze, stepped forward, and presented the chalice with a practiced bow.

Vael's hands enclosed it first. Steady. Reverent. The amber did not move.

She lifted the chalice and drank. For a moment, the wind hushed completely. As if the forest itself had leaned in. Then she passed it to Sam. His fingers brushed hers as he took it. Mira's breath stopped in her throat.

The amber quivered. The liquid swirled. Sam raised the chalice. He drank. The sliver flared gold inside the bowl.

It was brief. Barely more than a blink. But Mira saw it. Felt it.

The Guardian saw it too.

The amber had recognized something. The Grove responded. Somewhere beneath the roots, the sacred flame stirred. Not in anger. In revelation.

Mira stepped back. Silent. Still. Her heart beat so loud in her ears she could barely hear the crowd. And Sam; Sam stood taller now, his expression calm, but his skin beneath the collar of his ceremonial garb shimmered faintly, like moonlight under water.

Bioluminescence. A slow pulse from beneath his arm. His throat. His chest. The amber was no longer dormant. The judgment had begun. And still… the Grove held its breath.

Sam lowered the chalice. His fingers trembled just once. Barely perceptible. A flicker Mira would've missed; had she not been watching only him. Then something shifted. It wasn't loud. Not at first.

A murmur ran through the crowd; barely more than wind in tall grass. Not fear. Not yet. But attention. Dozens of heads turning toward the outer ring of the Grove. Not toward the dais. Toward the ceremonial perimeter. The line of Auxiliary Guard standing shoulder to shoulder in pressed tunics, flame-red cloaks brushing their boots.

One moved. Then another. Not out of sync. Not chaotic. Just… too fluid. Too prepared.

Mira's eyes flicked past Sam; searching. A thread of unease wound around her spine. One guard stepped forward and bowed… a beat too long. The captain beside him turned slightly to signal; and the disguised rebel drove a blade between his ribs.

No one screamed. Not at first. It was silent violence. The kind Mira had been trained to admire. The second rebel turned his blade inward and gutted the nearest sentinel before the poor boy could unsling his horn.

By the third kill, the crowd noticed. Gasps broke like glass underfoot. Children started crying. Some people clapped; confused; thinking it was part of the pageant.

Then the fifth body dropped with a gurgling choke.nAnd the illusion shattered. A horn blast finally sounded from somewhere in the north corner of the Grove. Screams erupted. Panic tore through the assembly like a lit fuse across parchment.

Mira didn't move. Couldn't. Her eyes were still on Sam; his shoulders rigid, jaw clenched, skin glowing now in threads of faint white-blue beneath his collar like ancient ley-maps waking from slumber. The amber in his chest shivered. Not in fear. In recognition. The Guardian was awake. And Mira; child of smoke and whispers; stood between the old gods and the first drop of spilled blood.

The Grove trembled. And then Sam screamed. It wasn't human. Not anymore. A sound torn from marrow, forged in heat and fury. The chalice hit the stone platform and shattered; liquid hissing against the earth like it had been poured onto coals. Mira stumbled back, shielding her face as a searing light exploded from Sam's chest.

Golden. Blinding. Alive.

Vines erupted around him; from him; spiraling out in violent arcs. They lashed across the dais like whips, cracking stone, ripping through carved banners, dragging down ceremonial torches. One caught a nearby guard mid-step and flung him twenty feet through the air.

"Sam!" Vael shouted. But Sam didn't hear. His body convulsed. Bark splintered through skin. Not smooth. Not elegant. Wild, jagged plates of wood burst from beneath the surface of his back, shoulders, and arms; like his body no longer knew what it meant to be human.

His mouth opened in another scream; but this time, it carried no words. Only light. The glow from his chest had become a beacon, pulsing in rhythm with something deep beneath the Grove. With every beat, the vines expanded, as though drawing power from the roots of the world itself.

Then came the sunflowers. They bloomed along his shoulders first; golden petals unfurling over bark, curling toward the air, then twisting unnaturally. Their centers opened like eyes; each one wide, gleaming, impossibly deep; and from them, a sudden, deafening blast of light erupted.

Mira screamed; shielding her eyes just in time. The beam scorched a line through the Grove wall. Another sunflower swiveled. Another searing ray of sunlight split a marble statue in half.

Panic erupted. The crowd became a tide of shrieking bodies. The rebels who had drawn blades hesitated; then ran. Their disguises fell to tatters. Their courage, too. Vael was still standing. Still calling his name.

"Sam; listen to me! You're still in there. You can fight this." But Sam staggered; half-twisted, not seeing, not hearing. His face was contorted, one side still flesh, the other becoming wood, like an ancient tree growing too fast, splitting its own trunk. His eyes blazed; no longer eyes, but furnace-cores of raw solar energy.

The sunflowers turned again; searching. Firing. A third blast struck a ceremonial brazier, sending molten gold and glass in every direction. Mira ducked behind the platform, heart hammering. She had seen this before.

Mira gripped the edge of the platform. The bark on Sam's forearms twisted like ropes. The golden glow in his chest blazed higher, and the sunflowers bloomed wider; dozens now, forming a crown along his shoulders and spine. Each one blinked.

Targeted.

Fired.

The Grove filled with smoke and light and the scent of burned moss. And still Sam grew. Not just in size; but also in presence. In pressure. Like the sun had rooted itself in the body of a man and forgotten it was ever meant to be kind.

Mira turned; and locked eyes with Vael across the chaos. One look. One unspoken question. And the knowledge settled like ash in her lungs:

This wasn't just a transformation. This was an awakening. And the thing that Sam was becoming was never meant to sleep.