Four Years Ago
Ash floated like feathers through the Sinks, soft and slow, layering crooked lampposts and rain-slick cobblestones until the whole district seemed perpetually on the verge of burial. The air was thick with damp and secrets, every breath a reminder of how easily the city could swallow you whole.
Hatim slipped between leaning walls, boots splashing through puddles that reeked of old iron and rotting roots. A curl of smoke drifted from the pipe of a slumped man in a doorway—one eye swollen shut, the other staring through Hatim as if watching something claw its way behind his ribs. No one greeted him. No one spoke. In the Sinks, silence was survival: move, or be moved.
But then the air shifted. Not rot. Not rust. Something green—alive.
He turned the corner and found the woven arch of Bone-Reed and Wyrmgrass, a little limp from age but still pulsing faintly in the Akar-light like a slow heartbeat. Beneath it, a door lashed together with salvaged wood and Akar-hide twine. Hatim knocked twice—sharp, then soft, the rhythm of someone who belonged.
The door creaked open, reluctant. Warmth spilled out, followed by the glow.
Inside, Maldri's hearth crackled beneath a pot blackened by years, the fire blue where it kissed carved volcanic stone. Shadows danced over bundles of Moonpetal Bloom hanging from the rafters, petals swaying with the breath of the room. Every jar on every shelf seemed to hum with its own memory—dustless, sealed with wax and quiet spells, the air thick with the scent of old roots and new hope.
"Close that, boy. You'll let in the rot," came Granny Maldri's voice—rough, steady, a sound that settled the room.
She didn't look up from her pestle, knotted fingers working slow circles as if massaging the soul from a stubborn root.
Hatim shut the door, feeling the hush settle around him.
"You eat?" she asked, eyes never leaving her work.
"Not yet."
She grunted, nodding at the kettle. "Two scoops. No more, no less."
He obeyed. The stew was thick with Thorn-Root and what smelled like smoked marrow, laced with the shimmer of Mistfrond. He never asked where she got the marrow. In the Sinks, too many answers were traps.
He sat, bowl in hand, and leaned against the coalgrass mat by the hearth. It was still warm from Lyra's sitting. She was always here before him, always leaving traces—an emptied jar turned upside down, a sliver of copper-thread twine looped on the table. She moved like smoke: always ahead, always just gone.
"You missed her," Maldri said, not bothering to read his eyes.
"I know."
"Don't sulk. Help me cut."
Hatim grabbed the dagger and the bundle of splitleaves, their edges razored and still twitching from being harvested. They oozed yellow sap that burned on skin. He moved carefully, letting muscle memory guide the strokes. Maldri watched, silent, until she turned back to her mortar.
"Good," she muttered.
That was high praise.
They worked in rhythm, the kind that felt older than either of them. The room filled with the hiss of sap hitting stone, the low bubble of stew, and the quiet tick tick tick of Maldri's left foot—always bouncing when she mixed something dangerous.
"You feel it?" she asked, voice low.
Hatim paused, knife hovering. "The shift?"
She nodded, eyes like sharp stones beneath her wrinkled brow. "Forest's blooming. Gloom-Lichen's waking."
His grip tightened. "It's early."
"Things don't wait anymore."
Silence returned. Somewhere above, boots thudded against iron grates. A scream came and went. Neither flinched.
"Lyra wants to go up," Hatim said after a long time.
"She always has."
"She wants me to come."
Maldri didn't answer. She wiped her hands, stood, and limped to the hearth. Her knees cracked, but her presence filled the room even more fully when she stood—like stone waking.
"I once thought I'd leave too," she said, ladling out a portion for herself. "Before the Sinks had its hooks in me. Before I knew what breath was worth down here."
Hatim watched the fire twist in the reflection of her eyes.
"Then why didn't you?"
She blew on her spoon, then sipped. "Because someone had to stay."
The flame snapped. A log split with a hiss.
The door groaned again, and Lyra stepped in, arms full of wrapped herbs and a satchel of gleaming bone fragments. Her cheeks were flushed, her braid frayed, and her eyes danced when they caught Hatim's.
"Told you he'd still be stirring soup," she said.
"You're late," Hatim replied, a smile breaking through before he could stop it.
Lyra jerked back as a Veil-Wasp droned past, its wings humming in a frequency that made Hatim's teeth ache. Where it flew, the air rippled—the lichen-covered oak behind it momentarily duplicated, then fused back into a single warped trunk.
"Don't stare, boy. Their illusions stick to unwatched minds," Maldri warned.
Hatim blinked—and the oak's bark now pulsed with vein-like glyphs that hadn't been there a breath ago.
Lyra dropped the herbs on the table and leaned against the wall beside him. For a moment, their shoulders touched. He didn't move.
Maldri eyed them both. "Gloom-Lichen's blooming. I'll need two sets of hands tomorrow. The forest won't wait."
Lyra's smile faded, but she nodded. "I'll prep the balm tonight."
"Use the old recipe," Maldri said. "We'll need the thick stuff."
As the hearth dimmed and the stew thickened, Hatim looked at Lyra. Her fingers were already stained green again, her mouth moving silently as she recited ingredient ratios. Lyra hadn't changed. Still too sharp, too loud, like a spark in wet wood. Part of him—deep, foolish—was glad she hadn't left.
He caught her glancing toward the rafters—toward the place where the smoke slipped through a slit and vanished toward the sky.
She was dreaming again.
He didn't know if he would follow her. Not yet.
But the forest waited. And the lichen only bloomed once.