BENEATH THE ROOT AND FLAME

📖 CHAPTER FIVE: Beneath the Root and Flame

The Eastern Wilds weren’t marked on any map.

The trees were too tall, too twisted, as if the land itself remembered something terrible and never quite forgave the sky. Even the wind moved different here—low, watchful, as though it listened more than it spoke.

Kael felt it first.

Not in the ground. Not in the air.

In his bones.

There was something buried here.

Something old.

Something that pulsed with the same strange rhythm that had lived in him since he was a child—wild, unwanted, and barely contained.

“Stop,” Kael said, voice low. “We’re close.”

Ron slowed beside him, hand instinctively brushing the hilt of his sword. “To what?”

Kael didn’t answer. He couldn’t. The words would sound foolish out loud. Because whatever it was, it wasn’t just stone or ruin or magic.

It was alive.

---

They found it in a clearing where the trees grew in a perfect circle, as if held back by force. In the center stood an ancient tree—blackened, hollowed, and wrapped in iron chains that hummed with enchantment older than language.

Etched in its bark was a symbol Kael had seen only once before.

In a dream.

He stepped closer, the world spinning, heat coiling in his chest.

Then he heard the arrow after it struck.

Pain burst through his shoulder. He hit the ground with a grunt, breath knocked clean from his lungs.

“Kael!” Ron was already moving—blade out, fury in his steps.

Figures emerged from the mist, cloaked and hooded, bows raised, blades drawn. Hunters. Mercenaries. Maybe worse.

Kael tried to lift a hand, summon flame, anything—but his vision blurred. Blood soaked his cloak, warm and fast.

And then—

Steel sang.

Ron moved like wind through wheat—smooth, trained, merciless. His blade caught moonlight and bone alike. He wasn’t just good. He was born for this.

Kael had never found swordplay beautiful before.

Now he did.

When it was over, Ron dropped to his knees beside him, blood streaking his jaw, eyes wild. “Stay awake. You hear me? Stay with me, Kale.”

Kael blinked slowly. “That’s not… how you say it.”

Ron laughed, breathless. “You’re dying and that’s what you care about?”

Kael smiled, faintly. “Yes.”

Ron ripped fabric from his own cloak and pressed it to the wound. “Don’t move. I swear to every god in the old woods, if you bleed out, I’m going to bring you back just so I can kill you myself.”

Kael coughed. “That’s not very princely.”

Ron met his eyes, and for a moment, everything stilled.

“You saved me,” he said quietly. “Now it’s my turn.”

---

They camped beside the ancient tree that night. Ron kept watch. Kael slept fitfully, haunted by dreams of fire and chains and voices in languages he didn’t know—but somehow understood.

When he woke before dawn, Ron was still awake, sitting close. Too close. But Kael didn’t pull away.

He let his hand brush Ron’s.

And Ron didn’t move.

Not away.

Not this time.

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