Chapter 6 Elle #2
“Easy to say. Harder to do when the power is eating you from the inside out, when every cell is screaming to become something other than human.” They looked at Kaelren, who had appeared at the edge of the training circle.
“She needs to pass the threshold tonight. If she doesn’t, the transformation will take her whether she’s ready or not. ”
Kaelren kept his distance, careful not to let our marks touch again. “How long does she have?”
“Hours. Maybe less. The combat training accelerated it further—each time she used the Root, it claimed more of her.”
“And if she fails?”
The Sage’s expression was unreadable. “Then she becomes something else. Something the realm needs but that might not be you anymore. Pure Root incarnate, without the human consciousness to guide it.”
“So I’d be alive but not… me?”
“You’d be a force of nature. Powerful. Necessary. But no longer Elle.”
***
“You’re still thinking like a human,” the Sage said after my latest failure left a crater in the grove floor.
“I am human!”
“No. You were human. Now you’re becoming something else.”
“I don’t want to become something else!” The words came out as a scream, and suddenly I was crying, really crying, for the first time since I’d fallen through that damned mirror.
“I want to go home! I want my grandmother back! I want to wake up in my bed and have this all be some grief-induced nightmare! I didn’t ask for any of this! ”
The grove went silent. Even Sarnyx stopped sharpening her thorns to stare.
“I had a life,” I continued, my voice breaking.
“A normal, boring, human life. I drew pictures for romance novels and drank Dr Pepper and complained about my ex-fiance. Now I’m in some nightmare realm where everything wants to kill me, wearing magic tattoos that are apparently eating me from the inside out, and you’re all acting like this is normal! ”
“It is normal,” Kaelren said coldly. “For us. You’re the aberration.”
“Thanks. That’s really helpful.”
“I’m not trying to help. I’m trying to make you understand that your wants are irrelevant. The marks chose you. That choice is final.”
“How does it work then? The choosing?”
The Sage smiled sadly. “You surrender. You let the power reshape you. You hope that enough of who you were survives the transformation.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“It’s not meant to be.”
As the day wore on—or what passed for day in the hollow tree—I felt the threshold approaching. It was like standing at the edge of a cliff, knowing you were about to fall but not knowing if you’d fly or splatter.
The crew watched with varying degrees of concern.
Bryx tried to lighten the mood with jokes that got progressively worse.
Vashael offered advice that seemed designed to be confusing.
Nimor observed silently, occasionally offering quiet corrections.
Eltrien stood ready with healing, knowing he’d probably need it.
Sarnyx was brutally honest about my chances, which were apparently “not good but not hopeless.”
And Kaelren watched everything, keeping his distance, his anger palpable.
He looked exhausted—something I hadn’t noticed before, too busy being terrified or angry myself.
Even standing at a distance, he was imposing—tall enough that most of the crew had to look up to meet his eyes, with the kind of build that came from actual combat rather than a gym.
His dark hair was perpetually tousled, like he’d been running his hands through it, and the thorn-laced leather armor he wore looked like an extension of his corruption rather than protection from it.
“When it happens,” he said abruptly, when the others were distracted, “don’t fight it.”
I looked at him, surprised. This was the first time he’d offered advice that wasn’t wrapped in cruelty or contempt. “That seems like bad advice.”
“Fighting makes it worse. Trust me.” He gestured at his carved marks, and for a moment I saw past the anger to something else—regret, maybe. Or shame. “I fought. Look what it got me.”
“Corruption? Pain? Slow death?”
“All of the above.” His smile was bitter, and I realized this was the closest thing to kindness he’d offered since I arrived. Not comfort—he’d made it clear he didn’t do comfort—but truth. Raw, honest truth that might actually keep me alive.
He was trying to save me from his fate. The thought hit me harder than it should have.
“Learn from my mistakes,” he said, and there was something almost pleading in his voice, buried under layers of frost and fury.
“And if I can’t?”
“Then you die horrifically instead of peacefully.” The walls slammed back up, his expression going cold again. But I’d seen behind them, just for a moment. Seen someone who’d been where I was standing, who’d made the wrong choice, and who didn’t want to watch someone else make it too.
Even if that someone was wearing marks he thought should be his.
Before I could respond—before I could acknowledge what he’d just given me—the marks flared. Not just warm now but burning, like someone had poured liquid lava under my skin. I gasped, doubling over, and suddenly everyone was moving.
“It’s happening,” the Sage said. “The first threshold.”
“What do I do?” I gasped through the pain.
“Choose,” they said simply. “Control or chaos. Master or servant. Human or other.”
“Those are terrible options!”
“They’re the only options.”
The pain increased, and I felt myself starting to change. Not physically—not yet—but something fundamental was shifting. The human parts of me were being overwritten, replaced with something older, wilder, more in tune with the growing things.
“Get away from me,” I gasped, terrified of what I might become.
“No,” Kaelren said flatly. “If you lose control and kill everyone, I need to be close enough to stop you.”
“How reassuring.”
“It’s practical. Someone needs to be ready to put you down if you become a threat.”
Through the haze of pain, I felt a flash of anger. “You’d kill me?”
“Without hesitation,” he said, and meant it. “The marks should have been mine. If you waste them by losing control, I’ll end you myself.”
The pain peaked, and suddenly I was somewhere else.
Not physically—my body was still in the grove—but my consciousness was in the green.
The space between spaces where all growing things connected.
I could feel every root, every leaf, every flower in the realm.
Could feel the rot eating at the edges, the corruption spreading, the slow death of everything.
And I could feel the Root itself. Ancient, patient, waiting.
Choose, it said without words.
“I don’t know how,” I said to the green.
Then learn.
The power flooded through me, and suddenly I understood. The marks weren’t trying to control me. They were trying to connect me. To make me part of something larger, older, more necessary than individual consciousness.
But I could choose how that connection worked. I could be a conduit or a participant. A tool or a partner.
I chose partner.
The pain receded, replaced by something else. Awareness. Connection. Purpose.
I opened eyes I didn’t remember closing and found myself standing in a grove that had been transformed.
Where there had been moss, there were now impossible-looking flowers, growing in patterns that told stories in a language older than words.
Where there had been fungi, there were now trees—saplings, but growing visibly, reaching toward light that shouldn’t exist this deep in the hollow.
And where I stood, there was a garden. Small, wild, but undeniably mine.
“Interesting,” the Sage said, and they sounded genuinely surprised. “You didn’t choose control or chaos.”
“I chose both,” I said, and my voice had harmonics now, like wind through leaves.
“That’s not possible.”
“A lot of impossible things are happening lately.”
I looked at my hands. The marks had spread to my fingertips, but they weren’t just glowing anymore.
Now they reflected the full spectrum of plant life—green of new growth, brown of fertile earth, red of autumn leaves, white of winter bark.
They shifted and changed, never quite settling on one pattern.
“How do you feel?” Eltrien asked, healer’s concern in his voice.
“Different. But still me. Mostly me, anyway.” I flexed my fingers, watching the marks shift through their color changes. “Everything feels more alive. Like I can hear the plants breathing.”
“The first threshold is the easiest,” the Sage warned. “There will be others, each one taking more of your humanity.”
“How many?”
“As many as it takes to become what you’re meant to be.”
“And what am I meant to be?”
“That remains to be seen.”
Kaelren approached slowly, like I might explode. With the power humming through me, it wasn’t an unreasonable concern.
“Your eyes,” he said, his voice flat and emotionless.
“What about them?”
“They’re changing. Gold with green, like sunset through leaves.” He studied me with clinical detachment. “The transformation is accelerating.”
“Thanks for sugar-coating it.”
“Would you prefer pretty lies?”
“I’d prefer not being turned into a plant zombie.”
“Then you should have stayed on Earth.” His silver eyes were cold as winter. “But you’re here now, wearing marks that should have been mine, so we’ll make do with what we have.”
Peeble landed on my shoulder, and I was surprised by how light they felt. Or maybe I was stronger now.
“Well,” the beetle said, “you didn’t explode. That’s something.”
“Was explosion a real possibility?”
“Oh yes. About thirty percent chance, actually. Though I’ve seen worse odds turn out fine. Well, mostly fine. There was that one time with the pixie who thought she could control lightning, but we don’t talk about that.”
The Sage clapped their hands, and the sound echoed wrong, like it bounced off surfaces that didn’t exist. “She’s passed the first threshold, but barely. The transformation will continue accelerating.”
I looked at my accidental garden more closely. The flowers were moving, very slightly, tracking motion like tiny sentient things. Their appearance shifted when I wasn’t looking directly at them, and I could have sworn one of them had teeth.
“That’s disturbing,” I said.
“That’s the Root,” Kaelren said, crouching to examine one of the flowers without touching it.
“Everything it touches becomes more aware. More hungry. More dangerous.” He studied the pattern of growth with the focus of someone analyzing a battlefield.
“The way they’re arranged—it’s defensive. Instinctive territory marking.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“You never mean to. That’s the problem.” He stood, brushing moss from his leathers.
“Eltrien, check her vitals before she sleeps. Sarnyx, double the perimeter watch—the power spike will have drawn attention. Nimor, scout the approaches. Bryx, make sure Kevin and the other mounts are secure. We may need to move quickly.”
The crew dispersed with practiced efficiency, and I realized this was the first time I’d heard him actually lead them. Not bark orders during combat, but plan. Strategize. Consider multiple threats at once.
“You think something’s coming?” I asked.
“Something’s always coming. The question is whether we’re ready when it arrives.” He looked at the Sage. “How long before the second threshold?”
“Days. Perhaps a week if she’s careful.”
“She won’t be careful. She doesn’t know how yet.” He turned back to me, and his expression was harder to read than usual—not quite anger, more like calculation. “You need rest. Real rest, not collapse. Your body is rebuilding itself at the cellular level. That requires resources.”
“I’m not hungry—”
“You will be. Bryx is bringing food that won’t kill you. Eat it. All of it.” He paused, then added, “The flowers you made? They’re feeding off your excess power. As long as they’re growing, you’re stable. When they start dying, that’s when we worry.”
“Why?”
“Because it means you’re not generating excess anymore. You’re consuming everything you produce just to maintain the transformation.” His silver eyes met mine. “That’s when people start burning through their humanity to fuel the power.”
It was the longest explanation he’d given me about anything, and the fact that he’d bothered felt significant.
“Thank you,” I said.
He looked uncomfortable with the gratitude. “It’s practical information. You’re no use to anyone if you burn out before the second threshold.”
“Right. Practical.” But I saw Peeble’s antennae twitch in a way that suggested the beetle didn’t believe him either.
As evening approached—marked more by the dimming glow of the bioluminescent fungi than any actual sunset—the hollow settled into its own rhythm.
I could hear the sounds of the community around us: arguments in languages I didn’t recognize, laughter that sounded like breaking glass, children (or child-like things) playing games that seemed to involve a lot of screaming.
The smell of cooking food drifted through the air, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what was being cooked.
Bryx appeared with what he claimed was dinner—some kind of stew that glowed faintly and tasted like mushrooms and regret. “It’s nutritious,” he said when I made a face. “Probably won’t kill you.”
“Probably?”
“Ninety percent sure. Maybe eighty-five.”
I ate it anyway because the alternative was starving, and my transformed body seemed to need more fuel than before. The marks on my skin pulsed gently as I ate, and I could feel them spreading incrementally, claiming more territory with each heartbeat.
“Hey,” Bryx said suddenly, his compound eyes reflecting the fungal light in fascinating patterns. “Want to see something cool?”
“Does it involve potential death?”
“Only a little.”
“Pass.”
“Your loss. The honey wine here can dissolve metal.”
“Why would anyone drink that?”
“For fun, mostly. Also, it makes you see colors that don’t exist yet.”
I looked around at my impossible garden, at the crew preparing for night watch, at Kaelren sharpening blades with methodical precision while pointedly not looking in my direction.
The marks on my skin continued their slow conquest, and somewhere in the distance, something howled in a register that human ears shouldn’t be able to hear.
This was my life now. Strange foods that might kill me, people who definitely wanted to kill me, and marks that were slowly killing me while transforming me into something else. Tomorrow would absolutely be worse, and the day after that worse still.
But for now, in this moment between battles and transformations, sitting in a garden that shouldn’t exist in a tree the size of a skyscraper, surrounded by dangerous outcasts who might eventually accept me or might eventually eat me—for now, I was surviving.
It wasn’t much, but it was enough.
Even if I had no idea what I was becoming.