Chapter 92 - 93: Perhaps your sisters feel the little key walking through their roots
A female turned.
Selka lowered her voice.
"She entered the Rot Nest."
"She saved people there."
"And brought something back."
Her eyes moved toward Thalara.
The Aelari stood near the roots, her pale gray-lavender body motionless, her wet white hair hanging around her branch horns.
"She followed Swanly from the Rot Nest."
The female’s face tightened.
Selka continued.
"Now black roots are growing beneath our sleeping caves."
Another survivor moved closer.
"What are you saying?"
"I am saying perhaps the danger did not find Riverbone."
Selka smiled faintly.
"Perhaps it followed her."
The whisper spread.
Not through the entire tribe.
Only among the frightened.
Only among those already searching for someone to blame.
Thalara heard every word.
Her purple forehead eye shifted toward them.
A Riverbone female held her cub closer.
"What if the thing beneath us followed her?"
Thalara’s fingers curled.
She had held the tunnel open.
She had stopped the earth from crushing the cubs.
She had helped.
She had only wanted to help.
But several people moved away when she passed.
Thalara lowered her head.
For once, her wide smile disappeared.
She said nothing.
⸻
That night, Swanly found Thalara sitting alone near the outer roots.
Her knees were drawn against her chest.
Her black claws rested in the dirt.
The roots around her were quiet.
Too quiet.
Swanly approached carefully.
"You disappeared."
"I am here."
"That is not what I meant."
Thalara’s purple eye remained on the ground.
After a long silence, she asked, "If the roots followed me, would you send me back?"
Swanly stopped.
The forest wind moved through Thalara’s long white hair.
"Did they follow you?"
Thalara did not answer.
Swanly’s body tightened.
"Thalara."
"I do not want to be alone again."
The words were so soft Swanly almost missed them.
Thalara pressed her claws into the soil.
"The dark was very long."
Swanly looked toward Riverbone.
Toward her cubs.
Toward the sealed tunnel.
She could not ignore danger because she pitied someone.
But she also remembered Thalara’s roots holding the earth apart while the cubs screamed below.
Swanly sat beside her.
Not too close.
Not far away.
"If you know something, you must tell me."
Thalara’s smile returned.
Small.
Broken.
"What if telling you makes you hate me?"
"Keeping it from me will be worse."
Thalara tilted her head.
The roots beneath them trembled.
Then she looked toward the forest.
Her entire body went still.
"One of them is awake."
Swanly’s breath caught.
"One of who?"
Thalara smiled again.
But this time, fear hid inside it.
"My old world."
...
Riverbone worked late into the night.
Preserved meat was divided.
Water containers were cleaned.
Weapons were repaired.
Carrying frames were built for cubs, injured males, and supplies.
They would be ready to leave by the following evening.
Swanly sat against the family cave wall with several piles of carved stones and bone markers spread across her lap.
One symbol represented hunters.
Another represented guards.
Smaller stones marked healers, cub-watchers, wounded people, and food carriers.
She moved one guard marker.
Then another.
Her eyes closed.
Her head dropped against the wall.
She fell asleep sitting upright.
Soren entered quietly.
He stopped when he saw her.
Her silver-white hair had fallen across her face.
One hand still rested over the guard markers.
The cubs slept nearby beneath Kael’s arm.
Soren studied the unfinished groups.
He understood the symbols from the patterns she had already completed.
Strong guards in the front.
Fast hunters on the sides.
Older, calmer males near the cub families.
He lowered part of his pale tail over Swanly’s body.
It covered her from shoulder to ankle.
Then he silently finished sorting the remaining guards according to their strength and experience.
Swanly woke sometime later.
A familiar coolness surrounded her.
She blinked.
Then looked down.
Soren’s tail was wrapped around her.
He sat a short distance away, moving the final bone marker.
Swanly narrowed her eyes.
"You are pretending to be kind."
"I was protecting the lists."
She looked at the markers.
Then at the tail covering her.
"The lists are on the other side."
Soren did not answer.
His tail tightened slightly around her waist.
Swanly’s cheeks heated.
"You heard me."
He moved another stone.
"I heard noise."
"That was a sentence."
"An unnecessary one."
Swanly tried to push his tail away.
It did not move.
Soren finally looked at her.
His silver gaze slid over her sleepy face.
"You were uncomfortable."
"I was not."
"You moved closer to my tail while asleep."
Her face caught fire.
"I did not."
"You did."
"Prove it."
His tail pulled her several inches closer.
Swanly’s breath caught.
Soren leaned down until his face was far too close to hers.
"I could place you where you were."
Her heartbeat slammed.
"You would not dare."
His eyes dropped briefly to her lips.
"Sleep again and find out."
Kael growled from the bedding.
Both of them turned.
The black panther’s golden eyes were open.
Very open.
Soren’s tail immediately loosened.
Swanly scrambled free.
"I was trapped."
Kael sat up.
"You looked comfortable."
"I was unconscious!"
Miko lifted his sleepy head.
"Mama sit snake now?"
Swanly covered her face.
"No one is sitting on anyone!"
Miko looked toward Kairo.
"Mama red again."
Kairo sighed.
"Sleep."
⸻
At midnight, Thalara opened her purple eye.
The roots beneath Riverbone were whispering.
Not words.
Directions.
Movement.
Many movements.
Thalara rose without waking anyone.
She crossed the sealed boundary and entered the forest alone.
The trees grew darker around her.
Black roots twisted beneath the soil.
After a long walk, she reached a dead clearing.
Something waited in the center.
Its body was long and covered in cracked bark.
Too many jointed arms hung from its sides.
Its neck bent in three places.
When it smiled, its mouth opened from cheek to cheek.
Human-like teeth filled the darkness inside.
"Root-Eyed Mother."
Thalara stopped.
The Root-Eater unfolded itself.
"You abandoned the dark and chose beast blood."
"They were kind to me."
The creature laughed.
The sound made dead leaves jump.
"Kind?"
It crawled closer on six arms.
"Your sisters will not be kind."
Thalara’s claws lengthened.
"Do not speak of them."
"The prisons opened."
"Not all of them."
"No."
The Root-Eater tilted its bark-covered head.
"But their guards are stirring."
One arm pointed toward the mountains.
"Their servants."
Another pointed toward the marsh.
"Their parasites."
A third pointed toward Riverbone.
"Their ruined children."
Thalara’s smile vanished.
"What called them?"
The creature’s human-like teeth clicked together.
"The blood that woke the buried seed."
Thalara’s forehead eye narrowed.
"Whose blood?"
The Root-Eater smiled wider.
"You were there when the prison opened, Root-Eyed Mother. You already know enough."
Thalara’s claws dug into the soil.
It was talking about the Rot Nest.
The Root-Eater laughed again.
"Perhaps your sisters feel the little key walking through their roots."
"They do not know her."
"They know hunger."
Thalara stepped closer.
"Leave them alone."
"Leave Riverbone," the creature replied. "Return to the dark before the others arrive."
"And if I refuse?"
"You will watch those gentle beast-blood creatures split apart beneath teeth and roots."
Thalara’s claws sank into the soil.
The Root-Eater circled her.
"If your sisters had not fed the first rot, none of us would be here."
Black roots erupted from the ground.
The creature jumped aside.
Thalara’s voice changed.
Low.
Ancient.
"Do not speak about my sisters."
"They made the roots sick."
"They were imprisoned!"
"They screamed, and the world rotted around them."
"They had no choice!"
"They always had choices."
Thalara’s branch horns trembled.
The Root-Eater leaned closer.
"You were the weakest of them."
Her smile returned.
Wide.
Terrible.
"And you talk too much."
Roots exploded from beneath the creature.
One pierced through its open mouth.
Another tore through its chest.
The Root-Eater shrieked.
Its many arms clawed at Thalara, but black roots wrapped around every joint and pulled in opposite directions.
Crack!
Two arms tore free.
Thalara walked closer while it choked on the root filling its throat.
"They were afraid."
Another root burst from its back.
"They were hurt."
The creature’s body split down the center.
"They were my sisters."
Thalara closed her fist.
The roots crushed its head.
Black blood sprayed across her face and body.
Silence returned.
Thalara stood over the broken remains.
Then she lifted her head.
She smelled the air.
Movement.
Many creatures.
Not travelling together.
Spreading through the forest.
Moving around Riverbone from different directions.
Surrounding it.
Thalara’s purple eye widened.
She turned and ran.
Branches struck her body.
Black blood dripped from her claws.
The roots beneath the earth screamed warnings with every step.
She reached Riverbone’s gate before dawn.
The guards lifted their weapons.
Thalara staggered into the torchlight, covered in black blood.
Her smile was gone.
"Wake up!"
Her voice tore through the sleeping tribe.
"They are coming!"
...
Writing and reading is so addictive when you have a goood imagination😗