Several people are already seated.
Thalia stands at the head of the table. She looks different today. Not in posture. Not in presence. The same steady focus surrounds her.
Her armor is grown from the Verdance's wood and shaped closely to her body. Reinforced shoulders. A high collar. Practical construction designed for movement and protection. Her dark hair is pulled back from her face.
She looks exactly like what she is. The person responsible for keeping twelve thousand people alive.
“Elle. Kaelren.”
She gestures toward two empty chairs.
“Please sit.”
We do.
Peeble rides on my shoulder the entire walk here. The moment I settle into the chair, they hop onto the table and position themselves directly in the center with exaggerated dignity.
“Do not mind me,” they announce. “I am present in an advisory capacity.”
“You are a beetle,” says the man across the table.
He has a shaved head and a square jaw.
Peeble turns slowly toward him. “I am a celestial intelligence currently inhabiting the physical form of a beetle,” they reply. “The distinction is subtle but important.”
The man studies them for a moment, then looks at Thalia. Her expression remains neutral, though something in her eyes tightens slightly.
“This is Captain Rhyven,” Thalia says. “Commander of the Verdance defense forces.”
Rhyven nods once. His armor matches Thalia’s but carries deeper marks where the living wood has cracked and regrown. The kind of armor that has been repaired many times after real combat.
“Torvel,” Thalia continues.
She gestures toward a thin fae man seated beside a stack of books that nearly hides him. “Our archivist. He maintains the records of every Bloomfall cycle, every Cathedral manifestation, and every strategic attempt made against it.”
Torvel peers over the top of the books. His pale blue eyes are magnified behind round spectacles. “Fifty-three cycles,” he says immediately. “Documented in detail. Welcome to fifty-four.”
Kaelren’s head turns slightly.
“Fifty-three?”
I lean forward.
“I thought there were seventeen.”
Torvel blinks as if the question surprises him.
Across the room, Thalia exhales quietly. “For you,” she says.
Kaelren’s voice stays level, “Explain.”
Thalia steps closer to the table. “The Root resets the world when the thread breaks,” she says. “That is what you experienced. Seventeen complete cycles.”
Her gaze moves between us. “But not every attempt reaches that point.”
My stomach tightens. “What does that mean?”
“The Root sometimes intervenes earlier,” she says. “It tests alternate paths with minor changes and varying outcomes.”
