The jungle had stopped pretending.
Moyan crouched beside the patch of glowing moss where Little Lian had dissolved, his fingers hovering over the perfect circle left behind. The residue clung to his skin like static, humming with the same sickening frequency as the Rootheart's nightmares.
"Stop poking it," Jian Luo grunted, leaning against a twisted tree. His sonic dagger emitted an irregular whine—too high-pitched for normal hearing, but Moyan's new senses caught every distorted note. "Unless you want to dissolve next."
Haiyu moved between them, her hands shaping sharp signs: "Quiet. The vines listen now."
A shudder ran through the ground. Not the Surge this time—something purposeful. The trees ahead bent unnaturally, their trunks creaking as they formed a spiraling path deeper east.
Yanmei nocked her last arrow. "That's not an invitation. It's a cattle chute."
---
The First Mark
The bone charm gleamed in the hollow of a petrified tree.
Moyan pried it free—a serpent carved from what looked like fused finger bones, its tail vanishing into its own mouth. The moment it left the bark, the surrounding vines recoiled with a hiss.
"Your father's work," Yanmei said. She pointed to tiny etchings along the ouroboros' spine—gravity runes matching those in the Floating Tomb.
Haiyu's hands trembled as she signed: "Not a trail. A quarantine line."
Jian Luo snorted. "Some quarantine. Lian still—"
A vine lashed from the canopy.
Fast. Too fast.
It wrapped around Jian Luo's wounded thigh before any of them could react, barbed tips sinking deep. Moyan's knife severed it, but the damage was done—thin threads of bioluminescent fluid already pulsed beneath Jian Luo's skin, branching toward his heart.
The Rootheart laughed in Moyan's bones. "The Serpent always takes the loudest first."
---
The Guardian's Gift
The behemoth found them at dusk.
It moved differently from the others—not charging, but herding, its six segmented legs boxing them toward the spiraling trees. The crystal orb embedded in its forehead pulsed in perfect sync with Moyan's knife.
"Don't attack," Moyan warned as Yanmei raised her bow.
The creature lowered its massive head until the crystal eye leveled with Moyan's chest. A beam of light connected them for three heartbeats, projecting images onto the mist:
A sinkhole shaped like the bone charm's spiral
Robed figures tending to bulbous growths in a voidship's wreckage
His father's silhouette, crucified on a sphere of black liquid
Then the light snapped off. The behemoth collapsed, its crystal eye darkening to smoke-filled obsidian.
Jian Luo wiped sweat from his brow, his veins now visibly glowing. "So. We're walking into the evil vine cult's lair because a monster showed us pretty pictures?"
Haiyu pressed her palm to the dead guardian's eye. When she pulled back, her fingertips came away stained with something that wasn't blood.
"No choice," she signed. "They already have us."
---
The Last Charm
The final marker glowed at the sinkhole's edge—another ouroboros, this one carved from what Moyan realized with dawning horror was a human sternum.
Haiyu reached for it first.
The moment her fingers touched bone, the ground trembled. Not from the Surge, but from something far older. The vines along the sinkhole's rim stiffened into a perfect spiral staircase, their thorns retracting like teeth behind lips.
Yanmei's arrow trembled in her bow. "They're not even hiding it anymore."
Jian Luo's breathing had gone ragged, his pupils dilated until only thin rings of brown remained. He grinned when he caught Moyan staring.
"Don't give me that look, abyss-rat. We all knew this was a one-way trip."
Moyan gripped his knife. The serpent carvings had reformed into a new shape—a key.
The Rootheart's whisper was almost gentle:
"Now you see why your father let them catch him."
From the shadows below, a robed figure emerged. The Oracle's mask split open with a wet crack, tendrils writhing as static filled the air:
"Subject Lin Moyan. You are expected."