Eryshae

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Magnolia

The Grove

He remembered the roar of bark and flame when Lord Deus first appeared. Not as a whisper, but as a storm. He had bent the knee then, and never risen. Then, the chiming wings. The dust. The glimmer. Now Deus came small, not to rattle the forest, but to whisper its next turning. The canopy had caught fire with golden light. The very marrow of the forest had sung, some deep, old resonance that spoke to root and spirit both. Trees cracked open, not from rot or age, but reverence. An Eldritch had stepped through the Grove that day, veined in molten sap, crowned with antlers of ironwood, each limb vast enough to cradle mountains.

That was then. Now came the chiming wings. The dust. The glimmer. Deus descended not as dominion, but as breath. Small now, no taller than a moth, his form shimmered with fractal wings and eyes like polished amber. Where he touched the air, it pulsed. Where he hovered, moss curled inward like it longed to cradle him.

He no longer needed to rattle the forest to be obeyed. He was no less than Eldritch for coming small. Magnolia watched from the shadows, kneeling in instinct if not motion. Though the body held still, the soul dropped like a stone into worship. He bowed his head.

"Lord Deus." Deus drifted closer, hovering just before Magnolia's face, haloed in the faint glisten of Grove-light. "Your charge has grown complicated." The voice was soft, barely audible above the rustling leaves, and yet it rang through Magnolia's chest like wind through hollowed bone.

Sam.

The Root-Ripped one.

The one the forest had not summoned, and yet had not rejected.

Magnolia's eyes flickered to where Sam and Vael walked, oblivious to the divine gaze that shadowed them. "She has pierced him." Deus said, wings whispering with each slow beat. "And filled the wound with my own blood. A sliver of Titan's Amber, planted not by me, but by love."

Magnolia's breath caught. A god's blood used as balm. Not stolen, gifted, in ignorance and intimacy. He dared not speak. "He is becoming something neither of them understand yet." A pause. A hum in the air. Then Deus turned his glowing gaze to the trees. "Keep watching. You've done well, Magnolia." The forest stirred. The roots sighed. And from somewhere deeper, older, colder, a name whispered through the mycelium threads:

Nemereth.

The name crawled like chill fog over Magnolia's mind. He had never seen her, but he felt her. The eldritch sibling to Deus. Absent. Buried. Hungering. And, tied, however faintly, to the woman Sam loved.

Vael.

Magnolia's thoughts tangled. Her scent often smelled like old petals and woodsmoke, like the edge of prophecy. And now, more and more, like something unripe in its power, something becoming. "She resides right on the threshold," Deus whispered, as if reading Magnolia's thoughts. "Not wholly hers. Not wholly mine. But watch her, too."

Then, the Eldritch blinked once. And was gone. Not with thunder. Not with fire. Only a shimmer of dust, caught in the shaft of moonlight bleeding through the leaves. The shimmer faded. The silence returned. But inside Magnolia, something stirred. He remembered the first oath. Not just the bending of the knee, but the surrender of all things human, all things soft and separate from root and bark. The Eldritch had asked for everything. And he had given it.

He had not known his own name, not truly, not then. Just the shape of it. The echo that people had called him. Magnolia. A flower. A softness. A foolishness. But Lord Deus had spoken it like it was made of stone. Like it could crack open and bleed. The memory unfurled not in words, but in sensations:

The burning of sap smeared across his chest, branding him.

The cool press of moss to his spine as he lay beneath the altar tree.

The taste of copper and cedar as he bit his own tongue, holding still, holding silent, as the Eldritch passed judgment.

He had heard the voice not with ears but within his marrow. "You will be my eye. You will be my root. You will watch and not wither." He had bled that day and been glad for it. Not for pain, but for purpose. Before that moment, he had been nothing, a runaway, a coward, a man half-dead from too many wars fought for kings who fed their dead to crows.

But Lord Deus had looked at him and said: "I do not need perfect. I need you present here and in the moment." He could be that. He could endure. He could remain. And so he had. All these years. Now, the forest shifted around him, older than yesterday, younger than the truth. The oath is still held. He could feel it, tight, invisible, coiled like vine around his ribs. And it whispered:

Watch him.

Watch her.

The bloom is breaking.

Magnolia straightened, his knees cracking from kneeling so long, the leaf-litter clinging to his robes like a second skin. He turned to follow the path Sam and Vael had taken. Silent. Steady. Rooted in purpose. But for the first time in decades, his fingers trembled. Because for all his watching, he had never seen a bloom like this.

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Magnolia slipped from shadow to shadow, his movement quieter than bark peeling in moonlight. Sam and Vael walked ahead, unaware of the old sentinel's eyes on their backs. Their pace was slow, careful. Sam glanced over his shoulder now and then, as if sensing something. But he didn't see Magnolia. Not yet.

He stayed uphill from them, pressed between a ring of ash trees whose trunks curved like fingers around him.

And then,

A sound.

Far off at first. Low. Repetitive.

Thump.

Scratch.

Skitter.

Chitter.

Magnolia froze. It came again, this time closer. Dozens of claws skimming stone, padded feet over moss. A squeal, then a series of sharp clicks. Harness leather. Steel armor clinking over fur. He knew that sound. Raccoon mounts. Not wild ones, trained. Outfitted. He crouched low and turned his ear to the wind. It carried voices now. Male. Loud. Confident. One barked an order.

"Fan out. I want them found."

Another voice laughed. "Bet she's got a nice scream." Magnolia's jaw clenched. His fingers twitched toward the dagger hidden beneath his cloak. Through the underbrush came the first glimpse, helmets shaped like pinecones. Leather dyed red, black, and iron-wrought pauldrons that gleamed like river stones. A formation, tight and brutal, emerged on the forest path like a sickness. Half-men, half-predator in the way they moved.

Riders. And behind them… a sigil on a banner. The crest of the Eberflame. Magnolia's breath turned to ice. He pivoted back the way he'd come, circling low, keeping to the brush. Sam and Vael were just a few hundred paces ahead. Too close. Too exposed. He moved faster. The hunters were here for them.

Magnolia surged downhill like a shadow unpinned, vaulting roots and weaving between thickets. He no longer cared about silence. The force he'd seen, armored raccoon riders bearing the Eberflame, would be upon Sam and Vael in moments.

They didn't stand a chance. He had to reach them. Had to warn them. Had to fight if he must. He slid down a shale slope and caught the edge of a moss-covered boulder, breath ragged, blood pounding in his ears.

Then,

A breeze.

Too warm. Too slow.

It coiled around him like a vine.

And in it, a voice.

Not spoken. Not heard. Known.

"Wait, my sapling. The forest turns when I turn it."

Magnolia stiffened. His heartbeat halted for the length of a breath. He looked to the trees. The leaves were utterly still. His hand dropped from the hilt of his dagger. "Hold. Watch. Let the path shape itself. Not all prey should be spared." The whisper of Lord Deus, calm and infinite, curled through his mind, laced with root-deep authority. Not a suggestion. A command. One that sank into his marrow and held him still. Below, Sam and Vael walked on, unaware of the doom skittering closer through the trees. Magnolia's jaw tightened. Every muscle in his body screamed to disobey.

But he didn't move. Not yet. He would watch. He would wait. And when the moment came, he would strike if Lord Deus permitted it. Magnolia crouched in the cradle of an ash tree, high above the trail's bend. Every limb trembled, not from fear, but from restraint. The command of Lord Deus rang in him still, roots wrapped around his will. Below, the underbrush parted with military precision.

He counted the raccoon mounts. Dozens. Dozens more. The chittering beasts moved with eerie discipline, leather tack silent, paws soft on the forest floor. Their masked faces glinted in the torchlight, eyes bright with instinct and training. Soldiers clad in black and crimson livery dismounted in waves. Some drew bows, others swords. All wore helms like polished beetle shells, smooth and cruel in design.

Whispers. A language half-choked in smoke and blood. War chants. Breathed more than spoken. Not for courage, but control. Magnolia's breath caught. He recognized the formation. Encirclement. They were cutting off the path behind Sam and Vael. Box by box. Step by silent step. And then, the center shifted. A massive raccoon stepped forward, thick with muscle, scarred along the jaw. It moved with the authority of a throne. And astride it, Ruwan. Magnolia's throat burned. Not the boy from the markets years ago. Not the soft-voiced son of silk and promises he remembered.

This was a young man carved in steel. Red cloak slung like blood over one shoulder. Crownlet of dark iron thorns. Hair braided and swept back beneath his helm. A warlord. And his eyes, they were fixed on the path ahead. Fixed on them. Magnolia's hand gripped his blade hilt again. Every breath was a war.

Wait.

The command echoed again, not in words, but in sap and stone and sky. So he waited. And watched. As death closed in on the only two people he had ever considered worth disobeying for. The command still burned in Magnolia's ears, no louder than a sigh through wind-woken leaves.

Wait.

And so he did. Muscles coiled like vine-twine. Heart hammering against his ribs. Breath held in silent defiance of instinct. He crouched within the underbrush, veiled by moss and dappled shadow. The agony of stillness crawled over him like fire ants, every fiber of his being demanded motion. Protection. Action. But Lord Deus had spoken. The time was not yet. Ahead, through a thin break in the trees, he saw them. Sam and Vael, emerging from the Grove's edge, silhouetted at the boundary of the Grove. Their steps were hesitant but determined, hands brushing close, eyes searching for safety.

They didn't see it. Didn't see the broken ferns, the crushed prints in the mud. Didn't hear what he heard. A subtle chitter. The weight of leather saddles. The scent of oil and torch-sap and cold iron. Then, movement. They swept in from either side, silent shadows at first, until they broke from concealment.

Soldiers in black and crimson livery dismounted with brutal efficiency. Bows unslung. Blades drawn. War chants whispered between clenched jaws. The torchlight caught their helms, gleaming like the eyes of predators. Sam stepped forward, vines spilling from his wrists like serpents made of breath and bark.

Beneath them, the Grove pulsed again. Roots shivered. Bark split. The runes carved into the old stones of the perimeter ignited with ancient light, gold, green, and obsidian. The first soldier through the Grove's perimeter didn't die right away. He was young. Eager. His helmet was too large, slipping slightly over one brow as he charged, sword drawn, torch raised. His boots crushed sacred moss beneath his feet, an unforgivable trespass. Sam met him in the clearing, half-shadow, half-bark, vines trailing from his arms like threads of fate.

The boy shouted.

Sam said nothing.

He raised his hand, and the Grove answered.