And I can see it.
The chasm has grown. What was originally fifty feet across is now easily three times that, a dark wound in the earth stretching toward the river colony in one direction and the Thornwood border in the other. Mist rises from its edges, carrying a damp, rotten smell that turns my stomach.
But that's not the worst of it.
The plants have changed. Along the chasm's edge, where the new blooms had been growing strong and healthy since Elle's sacrifice, the vegetation has changed. Vines that should be dormant are now sentient. They coil around rocks and pull. They reach for passing birds and grab. A copse of trees near the southern edge has developed thorns the length of my arm, andas I watch, one of them swipes at a deer that strayed too close. The animal bolts. The tree tracks it.
"That's new," Vashael says.
"Without the anchors, the Root's power is unregulated," Eltrien says. "The plants are responding to raw, unchanneled energy. They're not malicious; they're flooded with power they weren't designed to hold."
"That distinction won't matter to the people they kill," I say. "We need to evacuate the nearest settlements. Nimor, get word to Vyn Hollow and Silverpine. Pull everyone back to Willowmere. It's far enough from the chasm to buy us time."
He's already phasing. "On it."
"Vashael—"
A horn sounds. From the north. Deep, resonant, and I recognize it because I've fought alongside the man who carries it.
Thrak's army crests the northern ridge twenty minutes later with two hundred soldiers, armed and organized, with Thrak at the front. He's got a new scar across his jaw, and his one good eye carries the focus of a man who's been fighting his way here. So much for needing to alert Silverpine.
"Sarnyx." He dismounts and crosses to me. "Where's Kaelren?"
"Gone. Into the iterations. Searching for Elle."
He processes that for a few moments, then nods. "So then, you're in command."
"I'm not—"
"You are." He surveys the chasm, the writhing vegetation. "We ran into the plant problem on the march south. Lost three scouts along the way. My people have been cutting a path through the worst of it, but it's spreading faster than we can clear."
"The Root's power is unchanneled. Everything with roots is reacting to it."
"I don't care why they're doing it. I care about keeping people alive." He turns back to me. "What's the plan?"
The plan. As if there's a neat strategy for holding together a realm whose two anchors are both lost somewhere in time. Right. Time to do this.
"Evacuations first. Every settlement within five miles of the chasm needs to be pulled back to Willowmere. Thrak, your people form the perimeter to contain the sentient vegetation. Nothing gets past the line. Vashael, coordinate the civilian movement. Eltrien, I need you working on anything that can slow the chasm's growth."
"I can try a stabilization array," Eltrien says. "Root wards anchored along the rim. It won't stop it, but it might slow the expansion."
"Slow is enough for now."
"And long-term?" Thrak asks.
"Long term, we need Kaelren and Elle back. Both of them together, bonded in this timeline. That's the only thing that fixes this."
"And if they don't come back?"
The chasm groans a deep vibration I feel in my chest. Along its edge, the sentient plants thrash harder. A vine as thick as my torso lashes out and shatters a boulder. The pieces fall into the darkness below, and I don't hear them land.
"They'll come back," I assert, and I make it sound like a fact instead of a prayer. "We just have to keep things standing until they do."
Thrak nods once, turns to his army and starts barking orders. Within minutes, his soldiers are moving. Perimeter teams are heading south, evacuation squads forming, and a forward unit already engaging a cluster of sentient vines that have wrapped themselves around a nearby bridge.
I stand at the edge of the chasm and look down.
I try to calculate the rate of expansion against remaining stable ground, and the math isn't kind.
