"Thorough. Layered. Well-maintained." He pauses. "Whoever designed the fallback network understood siege theory. The tunnel system alone would take a dedicated military engineer years to plan."
"Thirty-two years," I say. "The original network was built during the first decade. I've been refining it since."
He studies me. I see the calculation behind his eyes, the way he's measuring my age against the timeline I just described. He doesn't ask. Not yet. But the question is there, sitting behind his composure like a weight he's deciding whether to set down.
Elle leans forward. "Thalia, are you okay? You seem..."
"I'm fine." The automatic answer. The one I give to everyone, every day, regardless of what's actually happening inside me. "I need to show you something. Through the Rootline. Memories. Mine. It will be easier than explaining."
Elle glances at Kaelren. He gives her a small nod, and she turns back to me. "Okay."
I hold out both hands, palms up. "Take my hands. Both of you."
Elle reaches without hesitation. Her fingers close around mine, warm and firm, and the contact sends a jolt through my Rootline marks that I have to work to suppress. Her magic recognizes me. It always does, even when she doesn't understand why.
Kaelren takes my other hand. His grip is cooler, steadier, and where his corruption meets my marks, there's a brief flicker ofresistance before the connection settles. Root and corruption, finding a balance. The same balance they've always found in me, because I carry both.
I close my eyes. I open the Rootline.
The first memory is the oldest one I have.
Arms. Warm, strong, smelling of lavender and something herbal I've never been able to identify. I am small enough to be held in the crook of an elbow. The light is gold and green, filtered through leaves, and somewhere nearby, water is running. A face leans into my vision. Red hair. Freckles. Green eyes that are wet and shining looking at me like I'm the only thing in the world that matters.
"She has my eyes," the woman says to someone I can't see. Her voice shakes. "Kaelren. Come look. She has my eyes."
A second face appears. Dark hair. Silver eyes. A jaw that could cut glass and an expression that I will spend my entire life learning to read. He looks at me with a stillness that goes past surprise, past joy, into something deeper. Something that rearranges the architecture of who he is.
"She's perfect," he says. And his voice cracks on the second word.
I feel Elle's hand tighten around mine. I feel Kaelren go rigid.
I don't stop. I send the next one.
A kitchen. Bright, cluttered, smelling of bread and wood smoke. I am older now, maybe four, sitting on a counter with my legs dangling. The woman with red hair is trying to braid my hair, and I am not cooperating. I keep turning my head to watch the man at the table, who is cleaning a blade with the focused precision of someone who does this every day.
"Hold still, little bug," she says. "I can't braid a moving target."
"I want to see the sword."
"It's not a sword, it's a dagger, and you're four."
"Daddy lets me hold it."
The woman shoots a look at the man. He doesn't look up from the blade, but the corner of his mouth twitches.
"Kaelren. Did you let our four-year-old hold a weapon?"
"I let her hold the handle. While I held the blade. With a sheath on."
"That is not the reassurance you think it is."
"She has good grip strength. She's a natural."
The woman puts her face in her hands. "I married a lunatic."
He looks up. Meets her eyes. Smiles. And the smile transforms him from something cold and sharp into someone warm, private, entirely hers.
"She'll need to know how to defend herself," he says, softer now. "The world won't always be safe."
