The knife's edge caught the harvester's tendril mid-lunge.
Moyan didn't hear the scream—he felt it, a vibration through the corrupted metal floor as the blade's gravity field twisted the appendage into knots. The creature recoiled, its carapace plates rattling like a snake's warning.
Jian Luo wheezed laughter from his crumpled position against the sphere. "Took you... long enough." Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth, his glowing veins pulsing faster where the harvester's acid had splashed his chest.
The Rootheart's vines slithered down Moyan's arm, reinforcing his grip. "Finish it. Before it adapts."
Another tendril lashed out. Moyan pivoted, letting the vibration through the floor guide his strike—
—and froze.
The harvester wasn't attacking.
It was signing.
Clumsy, broken gestures, but unmistakable:
"Subject Lin. Remember. The. Agreement."
---
The First Lie
The sphere's light shifted.
Suddenly Moyan stood in two places at once—kneeling in the present's ruin while simultaneously watching his father kneel in this same chamber years past.
Kainan's hands shaped signs Moyan hadn't seen since childhood: "We accept."
Across from him, a harvester's carapace lay cracked open like an egg. The humanoid figure inside wasn't a prisoner, but a negotiator, its flesh threaded with glowing roots identical to Moyan's.
The Rootheart went rigid in his spine. "No. This memory is corrupted."
The figure lifted three fingers—not in threat, but salute. Its voice emerged from the walls themselves:
"Three terms. First: One Warden remembers. The rest forget. Second: The Serpent takes only volunteers. Third:" —a shudder ran through its form— "You never speak of this truce."
Kainan's hands trembled as he signed: "Why?"
The answer came in a burst of static:
"Because some wars cannot be won. Only contained."
---
The Present Betrayal
Moyan wrenched back to reality just as the harvester lunged—not for him, but for Jian Luo.
"Move!"
His knife flashed. The blade sheared through the creature's sensor cluster, sending it staggering. Black fluid sprayed across the sphere's surface, revealing brief flashes—
—Haiyu as a child, hiding beneath a woven mat as harvesters passed her home—
—Jian Luo receiving his first dagger from Kainan's hands—
—Yanmei's arrows finding their mark in a harvester's eye, years before it was possible—
"It's showing you the first breach," the Rootheart hissed. "When they kept their word."
Jian Luo grabbed Moyan's wrist, his fingers burning with fever-heat. "Whatever... you're seeing... don't believe it." His other hand pressed something cold into Moyan's palm—the bone ouroboros from the jungle. "They lie like breathing."
The harvester straightened, its wounds already sealing with crystalline growths.
"Subject Lin Moyan," it intoned. "You are the control variable. The agreement requires your—"
Haiyu's staff struck from above.
The impact sent cracks racing across the sphere's surface. Kainan's crucified form gasped as roots snapped free from his chest.
"Run," he rasped—his first audible word in years.
The chamber began to collapse.