The Withered Weald was more than a simple village; it was a last bastion of defence against the encroachment of this corrupted world. Misaligned trees grew in tight, defensive clusters, their trunks spiralling around one another like wrestlers braced for impact. Scars ran down the bark, pale gouges where the wood had been stripped away, the regrowth rougher, knotted with a defensive callus.

  Rope bridges and walkways woven from living roots tied the trunks together at dizzying heights. Lantern pods and glow gems hung from a multitude of branches, bathing the gathered faces in dappled shades of green and amber.

  And there were a lot of faces.

  The bowl of the grove was packed. Leshei stood on roots, on platforms, on whatever piece of ground gave them room to see. There was no cheering to celebrate their return; these people were assessing.

  "Make way," the lead scout barked.

  A path cleared down the centre. The crowd's movement implied no respect; they simply made enough room for him to pass, creating a gauntlet of staring eyes and stony silence.

  Veyra was taken from him almost at once.

  Two healers met the group at the edge of the gathered people. They wore bark masks grown around their faces, their arms wrapped in layered cloth stained dark with sap.

  "Lay her down," one ordered.

  Elias moved to help, his hands reaching for the buckles he had tightened earlier. The rear scout’s hand came up, flat-palmed against his chest.

  "We carry our own," the scout said. His tone wasn’t hostile, just firm. "You have done enough."

  Elias paused. Decades of habit screamed at him to stay until he saw her pulse steady. You didn’t hand over someone you’d dragged back from the edge yourself. But he looked at those that had gathered, feeling the weight of a hundred eyes upon him.

  He stepped aside. "She needs fluids," he said. "And don't pick at the stitches."

  The healer didn't answer. They bore her away.

  Once she was gone, the attention settled fully on him. It felt like hot breath on the back of his neck. Not hate—not yet, but the heavy, silent resentment of people watching an intruder in their home.

  The lead scout touched his arm lightly. "Here. Stand here," she said, pointing to the centre of the bowl. "Do not draw the blade. Do not touch it unless they tell you to."

  "Noted," Elias nodded grimly.

  He stepped into the centre of the hollow.

  The ground there was bare earth over roots, tamped flat by centuries of footsteps. A single stone sat at its heart – smooth, low, worn by hands.

  Beyond it stood the three Elders.

  Pale Root had bark-skin, creased deep with age. Stone-Arm looked younger, more military; his left arm a fused column of root and granite. Mossmother stood between them, her jaw set with the patience of someone who solved problems by outlasting them.

  No one spoke. A brooding silence hung in the air.

  Elias adjusted his stance. His boots weren’t right after the Threadfall – one seam pinched his toe with every shift. Dried sweat had turned the inside of his armour into a scratchy band across his back. Not the kind of discomfort he expected to be wrestling with during a trial, but it kept his mind from drifting.

  Finally, Pale Root stepped forward.

  "You carry the cut root," she said, her accent wrapping itself around the common tongue in slow, deliberate curves. "The one that severed our Singer. We can smell it." her tone carried vehemence that brooked no interruption

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  Her gaze flickered to the sword hilt over his shoulder.

  Elias swallowed, the dryness in his throat making his tone gruff. "I know."

  Murmurs rippled through the gathered Leshei. Not loud, just a shift, like wind whistling through dry leaves.

  Stone-Arm moved next. He planted his granite fingers on the altar. "You dragged its memory through our forest. You woke old wounds. And yet you pulled one of our hunters back from the same bite that took others."

  His eyes narrowed, grey-green, sharp as flint.

  "Why?"

  The question was a trap. Elias was tempted to give a neat answer about diplomacy or restitution. He chose not to.

  "Because she was dying," he said plainly. "And I know how to stop people dying sometimes. Leaving her there felt wrong."

  "That is not a reason," Mossmother said. "That is a reflex."

  "Reflexes kept a lot of people alive where I came from," he said. "Not enough, but some."

  Pale Root tilted her head. "Where is that?"

  He hesitated. How did you explain a world of concrete and rebar to people made of wood and memory?

  "Just where I used to work," he said finally. "The rule was simple: stop the bleeding first. Figure out the politics later."

  Stone-Arm studied him. "Your words carry no smell of the Order’s prayers. That is something. But you walk with their steel, and their stain."

  Elias resisted the urge to reach back and touch the sword.

  "I didn’t forge it," he said. "I picked it up because leaving it to the dirt felt worse. The Keep showed me what it did. What the Order was used for. It’s why I’m here."

  "You would set yourself against the Crimson Fyre?" Pale Root asked. "You, rootless, with one poisoned blade? You would mend what they unmade?"

  "I don't know if I can fix everything," he said. "I'm not fool enough to promise that. But I can try to stop them from making it worse."

  He spread his hands, palms up, empty.

  "I can't resurrect the dead. I can't promise you a fair ending. But I can promise I won't walk away from this just because I wasn't here when it started."

  That, at least, came out cleanly.

  Stone-Arm looked at his fellow Elders. "The world is already breaking. The Order's fires consume forests we have never walked. If this one will try to stitch it back together from another angle..."

  Pale Root closed her eyes. When she opened them, some of the heat had gone, leaving only a vast, ancient weariness.

  "You saved one of ours," she said. "You did not do it cleanly, but you did save them. We will not thank you, not yet. You do not earn thanks for stopping one more death in a graveyard already overflowing. But we will give you what you ask for—a chance."

  Mossmother announced it to the crowd. "This man walks under our branches not as a guest, but as one on trial. The Hollow will test him. If he fails, his bones will feed the same ground as those he could not save."

  "That seems familiar," Elias muttered under his breath.

  "A simple shape," Stone-Arm said. "You will go where our singers cannot—to the Graveborn Hollow, to the trenches where the Order's dead are piled high. You will carry that blade, and you will see what answer the rot gives you."

  "And if I don't return?"

  "Then the question is answered for us," Pale Root said.

  He nodded slowly. Fair enough.

  A faint movement at the edge of his vision drew his eye downwards.

  A small figure had emerged from the tangle of roots near his boot. The same Fennroot he had seen in Gloamspire—or another just like it—stood there with its tiny hands pressed to the earth. Mushrooms along its back glowed a soft, steady green.

  It looked up at him. Its eyes were just two deeper pools of that light, but there was an intent there he could feel.

  One small root tip brushed against the toe of his boot.

  [SYSTEM: WILD ENTITY SEEKS BOND] [ACCEPT? Y / N]

  Nobody else seemed to see the text, but several of the nearest Leshy had gone very still.

  Elias flexed his toes inside his damp boot. He thought briefly of Cindersnarl, sleeping in stone so very far away. The Warg's absence tugged at his chest—a missing warmth.

  He lowered himself into a crouch, knees protesting.

  "Alright," he whispered to the creature. "If you're willing to share space in this mess, I won't say no."

  He picked YES.

  The root-tips of the Fennroot tightened lightly around his boot. A warmth spread up through the sole and into his calf, not hot enough to burn, just present—grounding.

  [COMPANION ACQUIRED: FENNROOT] [PASSIVE: SPORE RESISTANCE (MINOR)]

  A low murmur rolled through the gathered Leshy. Pale Root's mouth pressed into a thin line.

  "The sprites do not bind to every stranger," she said. "They do not bind to many of our own. Try not to make us regret letting them choose."

  "I'll do my best," he said, standing up.

  Mossmother raised her staff. "Enough. The day is long. You will sleep under our branches tonight. Guarded. Watched. Tomorrow, you walk toward the Graveborn Hollow."

  He nodded. Even uneasy sleep had a pull to it now, warm and insistent.

  "If Veyra—" he started.

  "She is being tended," Mossmother cut him off. "If she lives the night, it will be with help from roots and from whatever you poured into her blood. That is all you can ask of a body."

  The Fennroot at his boot tugged once at his trouser leg. It moved with him when he stepped back.

  "Come," the lead scout said quietly, "before they remember they meant to argue longer."

  They put him in a hollow at the base of one of the older trees. The space was just a gap between two massive roots, curtained off by hanging moss. The floor was packed earth covered in woven mats. A basin of water sat in the corner. Two guards took up position outside.

  Elias sat on the low bench. The smell was not inspiring as he unbuckled his boots. He peeled the damp socks away, wincing at the sight of the raw patch on his heel.

  He cleaned it with water and a strip of cloth. The Fennroot watched from the corner, sitting on its haunches like an oddly constructed dog.

  "You're not going to tattle if I swear at your forest, are you?" he asked it as he bound his feet.

  It tilted its head.

  "Didn't think so."

  He stretched out on the bench. It was harder than any bed and far more welcome.

  [QUEST STARTED: TRIAL OF THE GRAVEBORN]

  "Yeah," he said softly to the empty room. "One thing at a time."

  He closed his eyes.

  The exhaustion was heavy, physical, and immediate. Sleep took him before the next breath left his lungs.