Calling it a tree is technically correct in the same way that calling the ocean a puddle is technically correct. The trunk is easily eighty feet across. Its beautiful bark gleams under filteredlight as it rises upward so far that the branches disappear into the canopy formed by the surrounding towers.
The root system spreads outward like the foundation of the entire city. Massive pale roots dive into the ground and resurface again to support nearby structures. The towers in the innermost ring are not built beside the Heartwood.
They grew from it.
The entire city is one living organism. I knew that in theory. Seeing it in person is something else entirely.
“That’s the Heartwood,” Elle says quietly beside me.
“You can feel it,” I reply.
“Can’t you?”
I can.
Through our connection, through my marks, and through something older that has nothing to do with either. The tree produces a pulse that travels through the root paths and bridges and into the walls of every structure.
A heartbeat.
The city’s heartbeat.
My corruption marks respond to it with recognition rather than hostility. The dark veins along my forearms pulse twice before settling into the same rhythm as the Heartwood itself.
I have not felt resonance like that since the Elm Gate in Grandma Jo’s garden.
Elle notices the change in my marks but says nothing. I sense her relief anyway. She had been worried that the Verdance’s magic would reject me.
It has not.
Thalia watches the exchange from several paces ahead. She studies my marks with the same expression she uses when examining damaged towers. Calm, analytical attention.
There is nothing careless about this woman.
I study her in return.
She carries herself with Sarnyx’s efficiency of movement. No wasted gestures. No nervous habits. Her hands either rest at her sides or fold neatly behind her back. When she speaks, she uses only the number of words necessary.
She reminds me of officers I served beside during campaigns that should have killed us. The ones who stopped performing composure and eventually became it.
But other details do not fit that profile.
The set of her jaw when she holds back a reaction.
The way her eyes tighten at the corners when she listens closely.
Elle does that same thing.
Then there is the look Thalia gave us when we stepped out of the alcove earlier. It was not surprise and it was not disapproval. It was something more specific, something she buried before I could read it fully.
She knows us.
Not as allies. Not simply as weapons.
Something closer than that.
I do not yet have enough information to draw a conclusion, but the answer exists somewhere ahead of us.
“The council chamber is inside the Heartwood,” Thalia says. “You will see it tomorrow when the council convenes. For tonight, I will show you the defenses along the third ring and then your chamber.”
