The path to the heart beneath the heart wasn't marked on any map.
It wasn't carved by man or beast, but by time—and grief. Caelum called it the Hollow Root, a place that once belonged to the spirits before they withdrew from the waking world.
Now, only whispers dared enter it.
Elira stood at the mouth of a spiral stair carved from petrified wood, its surface slick with moss. Each step creaked like bones underfoot. Shadows stretched down endlessly, far past the reach of any lantern.
She tightened her satchel, the journal pressing against her ribs. "Are we sure this is the only way?"
"No," Caelum said from beside her, his voice solemn. "But it's the one Selene showed us."
Behind them, Maerel waited with a flickering lantern, her expression unreadable. "If you go down there," she warned, "you might not come back the same."
"We won't come back unchanged either way," Elira replied.
Maerel offered her the lantern. "Then walk with purpose. And don't speak if the trees ask your name."
They descended.
Step by step, the light above faded until even Caelum's golden eyes were just reflections in the dark. Elira kept her hand on the stone wall, tracing the grooves worn by countless others—pilgrims, sorcerers, beasts.
The air grew colder. Thicker. Almost… aware.
Then—movement.
Not ahead.
Behind.
Elira turned, heart in her throat—but saw only stone.
"Did you hear that?" she whispered.
Caelum's ears twitched. "We're not alone."
They pressed on faster, until finally the stairs opened into a vast, domed cavern. At its center stood a towering tree, leafless and pale as bone, its roots splayed across the stone like the fingers of a corpse.
But it pulsed—softly—with light.
"The Heart-Below," Caelum whispered.
Elira stepped closer. "This is where the curse began, isn't it?"
"No," he said. "This is where it was sealed."
She knelt beside the roots. The journal in her satchel flared with heat. She opened it to a page she hadn't noticed before—one that hadn't been there.
A glyph shaped like an eye… wrapped in thorns.
The name beneath it had been smudged, but one thing was clear: this was no glyph of memory or healing.
It was a glyph of binding.
And it was already carved into the roots.
Suddenly, the light in the cavern flickered—and a voice, dry as splintered bark, echoed through the chamber.
"Another dreamer… come to bleed."
Elira froze.
The roots shifted.
And from within the hollow trunk, something began to stir.
Not Selene.
Not a spirit.
Something ancient.
Something hungry.