So I tuck it away.
Right next to the ache that’s started blooming whenever I walk back toward the Grove and hope, just a little too much, to hear that voice again.
CHAPTER 8
THORN
She comes again.
Even after hearing me—after standing in the breath of my voice and feeling the old weight of the Grove stir around her—she still comes.
And she’s not pretending nothing happened. I see it in the way her fingers shake when she scatters seed, in the way she pauses longer near the line of ward stones. But she doesn’t run. Doesn’t call for help.
She just… stays.
That’s enough to stir something even older than me.
The ward-tree’s pulse beats louder today, like its roots are reaching toward her footsteps. The ground beneath my feet tingles with something I haven’t felt in centuries.
Eagerness.
She kneels in the usual place, the hem of her pants damp with dew. Her voice is steadier this time when she speaks.
“I’m back. Hope that’s okay.”
It is.
But I don’t answer from shadow.
This time, I step out.
The moss parts for me. Leaves still. Air holds its breath.
She gasps when she sees me—fully, completely.
I watch her eyes trace the runes glowing faintly across my collarbone, the bark at my arms and jaw, the way my skin bends where vines pulse under the surface like veins.
But she doesn’t scream.
She stands, slowly, like every movement matters. “You…”
“I am Thorn,” I say, my voice like gravel softened by moss. “I was grown for this Grove.”
She takes another half step closer, then stops. “You weregrown?”
“By elven druids,” I say. “Centuries ago. To protect this land, not just with strength—but withpresence.”
She blinks. “You’re part of it.”
I nod. “We are one.”
She folds her arms gently, thoughtful. “You said the Grove listens.”
“It does more than that.”
I turn slightly and stretch out my hand to the vine she tends. It rises in response, its leaves shifting toward the sound of her breath. The earth hums beneath us—deep, like a heart waking.
“This place reacts,” I say. “It feels. It remembers. Itmirrorswhat is given to it.”
