The village tavern was not the most logical place to conduct a secret meeting about ancient bloodlines and political conspiracies.
Which is exactly why Elric chose it.
No one would expect a prince-healer, a beastkin rogue, a sarcastic maid, an ex-assassin, a half-possessed kid, and a scholar-elf with a resting-smug-face to be sharing mushroom stew while plotting to undermine the kingdom's shadow games.
But there they were.
Sylas had finally stopped sniffing parchment long enough to sit down. "So," he said, wiping stew from his lip, "you're telling me the Tree of Echoes is one of many?"
"Yes," Elric said calmly. "And each is tied to a bloodline—mine, Cai's, Keera's... maybe even Selene's."
Lira raised a brow. "You left out Veyra."
Veyra, sharpening a knife by the fire, didn't look up. "I have no roots. Just targets."
Cai leaned in. "What happens if all the Trees wake up?"
Elric stared into his bowl, the broth swirling like storm clouds.
"I don't know," he admitted. "But I think the world forgets why they were put to sleep."
---
The next morning, Elric left Sylas in charge of the clinic.
"Don't break anything... especially if it has claws," he warned, handing Sylas the keys.
He left Lira a very long to-do list.
"Also, ignore steps 9 through 11 unless you're feeling particularly experimental," he added.
Then, with Keera and Veyra, he departed for the northern pass.
Keera knew the terrain. She moved like shadow, ears twitching with every sound. Occasionally, she'd sniff the air and mutter things like, "Too clean. No beast trails," or "Something's hiding."
Elric wasn't used to traveling with beastkin. Or ex-assassins. Or anyone who wasn't sarcastic.
It was... unsettling.
But quiet had its own rhythm.
And the mountain path was not truly quiet.
As they neared an old dwarven marker stone—cracked and buried in moss—Keera froze.
"Elric," she whispered, hand on her bow, "look."
On the stone was carved a simple sigil: a tree wrapped in chains... bleeding.
He reached out. The sigil on his wrist glowed faintly in response.
Something beneath the mountain remembered him.
---
They found the ruins before sundown.
Towering pillars carved by dwarves long gone stood half-swallowed by time and frost. Veyra scouted the perimeter.
"Tracks," she reported. "Not fresh, but not old. Maybe a week. Heavy bootprint. Not dwarven."
"Treasure hunters?" Keera asked.
Elric shook his head. "No. Watchers."
He pointed to a small satchel wedged behind a broken stone. Inside were notes, sketched sigils, and a dried flower pressed flat—marked with a rune of surveillance.
"They're studying these ruins too," he said. "The king is playing both sides."
Keera's ears flattened. "And you're the board."
---
That night, beneath a dwarven arch lit by Elric's firebrew lantern, they found the path downward.
A staircase carved into black stone spiraled down, so far it seemed to fall into the roots of the world.
Veyra grinned. "You know what I love about cursed staircases?"
"What?" Elric asked.
"They're never boring."
---
Back at the clinic, Lira sat on the rooftop with Cai and Sylas.
Cai pointed at the stars, giving them ridiculous names.
"That one's 'Sleepy Elric.' It only appears when he overworks himself and falls asleep in the storage room."
Sylas chuckled—for once, not correcting anyone. "And that one?"
"That's Lira's Fist. It appears when she's about to throw a sandal at someone."
Lira sighed. "I should've left both of you at the tavern."
But her smile said otherwise.
---
Deep beneath the mountains, in darkness Elric hadn't known since his last life's final surgery table, the air shifted.
Not cold. Not damp.
Just... expectant.
The deeper he walked, the stronger the sigil burned.
The Tree was near.
And it was not asleep.
---