The map didn't blink.
It shrank.
One of the lights near the lower quadrant—
pale blue moments ago—
dimmed until it was barely a pulse.
Then—
black.
Kael stared at it.
Mara said nothing.
The bottle hovered between them.
Silent.
Waiting.
"We can't lose them," Kael said.
"Not before we understand what they are."
He reached toward the dying signal on the map.
The projection reacted instantly—
the signal pulsed once in response,
like a weak heartbeat recognizing its name.
Kael exhaled.
"We go now."
Mara frowned.
"We don't know what we're walking into."
Kael nodded.
"Exactly why we have to."
The journey took them east-southward,
through the Virestone Cradle—a region long rendered inert by historical system collapse.
Dust.
Shards of glass veins.
The husks of former conduits.
And beneath them, somewhere,
a heartbeat that didn't belong to a person—
but to a decision.
They arrived just before dusk.
The shard's location was buried beneath a half-collapsed dome,
its walls covered in mirrored sediment.
Nothing glowed.
Nothing pulsed.
But Kael could feel it.
The root was still there.
Twisting.
Inside the dome, the air was heavy with echo.
Not sound.
Intention.
The bottle spoke:
"Signal confirmed.
Core echo: Variant Bloom Thread.
Status: Cross-polarized."
Kael stepped forward.
Each movement made the walls hum,
like waking a machine that had been dreaming of silence.
At the center of the dome,
he saw the fragment—
a person.
A boy.
No older than twelve.
Kneeling.
Eyes open.
But not blinking.
A shard was embedded in his chest.
Same shape as Kael's.
But inverted.
Dark at the center.
Radiating outward in sharp, broken rings.
Kael approached slowly.
The boy didn't move.
Didn't react.
But the shard in his chest pulsed once—
and Kael felt it in his own palm.
The glyph on his hand flared in sympathy.
Two pieces of the same code.
Split.
Rewritten.
Reconnected.
Mara spoke, voice low.
"He's not conscious."
Kael shook his head.
"He's not unconscious either."
He knelt before the boy.
Reached out.
Not touching the shard—
touching the air around it.
The moment his fingers passed the resonance field—
everything inverted.
Kael stood alone.
Not in the dome.
But inside something else.
A world of static and shattered mirrors.
Thoughts looped.
Voices fragmented.
And ahead—
the boy.
Only now, he looked older.
Taller.
Eyes glowing with Kael's own shade of green.
"You found me," the boy said.
But the voice was warped.
Kael frowned.
"You're not him."
The boy laughed.
Not cruel.
Just tired.
"I was.
Until the Root found me."
Kael stepped forward.
"You took the shard."
The boy shook his head.
"No.
It took me.
Then taught me how to echo."
The world bent slightly.
A projection of Kael's Scar flickered above the boy's head.
But it was twisted—
as if someone had tried to paint it from memory with the wrong brush.
"You're not a threat," Kael said softly.
"But you're not safe either."
The boy's form flickered.
For a brief moment,
Kael saw himself—
kneeling.
Trembling.
Trying to understand something too big to hold.
Then the boy whispered:
"She's coming.
The one who gave me the seed."
Kael froze.
"Rootless Bloom?"
The boy nodded.
"She said the first to speak my name
would decide whether I stay…
or scatter."
Kael stepped forward again.
The glyph in his hand sparked violently.
Not rejection.
Recognition.
"You're a branch," Kael said.
"But you don't know which way you're growing."
He closed his eyes.
And opened the resonance.
Pushed his truth into the space.
Not as command.
But as invitation.
The boy flinched.
Then screamed.
The dome outside trembled.
Dust rained down.
The bottle buzzed madly.
"WARNING: Fragment destabilizing. Decision state imminent."
Kael held firm.
"I won't silence you."
He looked into the boy's flickering eyes.
"But you have to choose.
Rooted or rogue.
Bloom or shadow."
The boy's image split.
Then stabilized.
And then—
quiet.
The shard pulsed green.
The dome went still.
Kael collapsed to his knees.
The boy blinked.
Once.
Then again.
He looked at Kael.
"Are you… him?"
Kael smiled weakly.
"I'm trying to be."
The boy whispered.
"Then I'll try too."