Chapter 23 - Kaelren
Kaelren
The bond didn’t break—it stretched and tore and muted until I could barely feel her.
One moment Elle was there, angry and bright in my consciousness, a flame I’d grown dependent on without realizing.
The next, almost nothing. A whisper where there had been a shout. A cold ember where there had been fire.
The loss hit me like a physical blow, doubling me over at the lake’s edge where I’d just watched her disappear beneath impossible water.
“ELLE!”
The roar tore from my throat, inhuman, primal.
The golden vines that had appeared on my arms in the Pleasure Grove—the ones I hadn’t told her about, hadn’t let her see when she’d traced patterns on my skin with glowing mushroom paint—turned black instantly, spreading up my forearms like poison through veins.
I’d kept my sleeves down these past three days, unwilling to show her that being with her had marked me permanently.
Where they touched my carved marks, the silver-blue light died, replaced by something that ate light rather than created it.
I dove back into the Mirror Lake without thinking, but the water rejected me—burned like acid against my corrupted marks. Each stroke felt like swimming through molten glass. But she wasn’t there. The lake had taken her somewhere else, somewhere beyond my reach.
I surfaced gasping, scanning the water that had become hatefully serene.
“Get away from the water!” Vashael commanded, but I was already moving, running in the direction my corrupted instincts said she’d been taken.
Trees split where I passed, their trunks cracking not from physical force but from the wrongness radiating from my skin. Roots erupted from the earth, reaching for enemies that weren’t there, responding to the violence in my blood.
The others followed, trying to keep up, but I was beyond caring about them. Beyond caring about anything except the growing emptiness where Elle should be.
“Kaelren, stop,” Peeble’s voice came, frantic. “You’re going the wrong way. They took her east, but you can’t just—”
“Then tell me where she is!” I snarled at the tiny creature now perched on my shoulder, having grown to the size of a cat during the chaos.
“I’m trying, but you’re not listening! You’re just destroying everything!”
I stopped, finally noticing the devastation behind me. A trail of dead vegetation, trees withered to husks, the ground itself cracked and wrong. The corruption wasn’t just in my marks anymore—it was leaking out, poisoning everything I touched.
“Where?” The word came out as a growl.
“East. Toward the Heartspire. But Kaelren, you can’t just charge in—”
I started moving, but Sarnyx stepped into my path.
“We need a plan,” she said, thorns extended but trembling slightly. She’d seen what I’d done to the forest. “Charging in will just get her killed.”
“Move.”
“No.”
The rage that had been building since Elle’s capture finally found a target. I had Sarnyx by the throat before she could react, lifting her off the ground. Her thorns pierced my arm, but I didn’t feel them. All I felt was rage—pure, corrupted, absolute.
“You should have stopped me from sending her off with just Peeble,” I snarled, my grip tightening. Black veins spread from where I touched her, and she gasped in pain. “You knew the lake was dangerous. You should have gone with her. You should have—”
“Kaelren!” Vashael’s voice cut through the red haze. “Put her down. This isn’t helping.”
“She lost her!” I squeezed tighter, watching Sarnyx’s face turn purple. The black veins from my touch were spreading up her neck now.
Vashael’s blade pressed against my ribs. “Put. Her. Down. Or I’ll put you down.”
“Try it,” I said, and my marks pulsed with such violent light that she staggered back.
Nimor tried to grab me from behind, manifesting from shadow, but the moment he touched me, he screamed. The corruption burned him, sent him reeling back with black marks spreading across his hands.
“Someone stop him!” Bryx shouted. “He’s going to kill her!”
Then Peeble landed on my hand—the one crushing Sarnyx’s throat.
“She wouldn’t want this,” the creature said, and suddenly I wasn’t hearing Peeble’s voice but something of Elle channeled through our dying bond. “Kaelren, please. Don’t become the monster they think you are. Not for me.”
My grip loosened. Not much, but enough.
“She’s scared,” Peeble continued. “She’s in pain. The Hunt has her, and they’re taking her to Auradelle. She needs you functional, not feral. She needs you to be smart, not just strong.”
I dropped Sarnyx, who collapsed gasping. The black veins I’d left on her throat were already fading, but the memory of them wouldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” I said, but the words felt hollow. I wasn’t sorry. I wanted to destroy everything between me and Elle. I wanted to paint the realm in blood until she was back where she belonged—with me.
“That’s the corruption talking,” Peeble said. “Look at yourself.”
I looked down. The golden vines that had been beautiful just days ago—when Elle had smiled up at me from that nest of moss and flowers, when she’d told me she wanted me despite knowing our time was limited—were now black as midnight, spreading past my elbows, up my biceps.
Where they met my carved marks, they twisted together into patterns that hurt to look at.
My skin between the marks was pale, almost gray, like something dead.
“We need to get to Silverpine Hollow,” Vashael said, helping Sarnyx to her feet. “There are rebels there. People who can help. Resources.”
“How long?” My voice was rough, barely controlled.
“Three days if we push hard.”
“The convergence—” I stopped, calculating. The days we’d spent at Thornwood Throne, plus three more days of travel to Silverpine would just give us over a week until the convergence. “We have time. Barely.”
“Before what?” Eltrien asked, his mycelial markings pulsing with that disturbing rhythm.
“Before the convergence,” I said. “Before whatever Auradelle plans comes to pass. Before this realm either survives or is destroyed completely.”
His marks pulsed, steady and knowing. “Then we’d better move,” he said quietly.
We ran through the day and most of the night.
I couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop. Every moment we delayed was another moment Elle suffered.
Through our bond, faint as gossamer, I felt flashes—cold that burned, marks turning gray at the edges, someone’s voice saying something about the Bloom.
Pain. Fear. But also defiance, that stubborn refusal to break that was so essentially Elle.
“I’m coming,” I sent through the bond, not knowing if she could hear me. “Hold on. I’m coming for you.”
And impossibly, faintly, I felt her response—not words, but the memory of her voice from our last night together: “Find me. In this lifetime or any other. Find me.”
By the time we reached Silverpine Hollow on the third day, I was more corruption than man.
The settlement was built into living pines, massive trees that had been coaxed to grow shelters within their trunks. It should have been beautiful. But the moment I entered, the trees recoiled. Leaves withered. Bark cracked. The living wood recognized what I was becoming and feared it.
“Who is that?” someone whispered.
“That’s not a who anymore,” another replied. “That’s a what.”
Thrak, the rebel leader of Silverpine, was a scarred veteran missing his left eye. He may not have been tall as me, but he was built for war nonetheless. He took one look at me and reached for his weapon.
“He’s with us,” Vashael said quickly. “This is our leader, Kaelren. He’s… sick.”
“That’s not sick,” Thrak said. “That’s corrupted. That’s dangerous.”
“Yes,” I agreed, meeting his gaze with eyes that had gone silver-white. “I am. And I’ll be worse if you don’t help me get her back.”
“Her?”
“The marked one. The human. Elle.”
Something shifted in Thrak’s expression. “The prophecy girl? She’s been taken?”
“By the Hunt. To Auradelle. Three days ago.”
“Shit.” He lowered his weapon slightly. “That changes things. Come on, we need to talk. Away from the trees you’re killing.”
We were taken to the center of the settlement, where an ancient pine served as a meeting hall. The moment I entered, frost spread across the floor from my footsteps. The torches flickered, dimming. Several rebels backed away, fear plain on their faces.
Thrak gestured to the others already assembled.
“My inner circle. Vera—” A woman with bark-textured skin and calculating eyes nodded.
“Former Crown guard, turned when she saw what Auradelle was building. Knows the Heartspire inside and out.” He indicated a massive being whose body seemed carved from living stone.
“Gorak. Demolitions. If it needs breaking, he breaks it.” Finally, a slight figure wreathed in shadow.
“Lysandra. Seer. She’s the one who told us you were coming. ”
“These are the people I trust with my life,” Thrak said, meeting my corrupted gaze steadily. “You can trust them with yours.”
“Tell us everything,” he continued. “From the beginning.”
So I did. Or Vashael did, mostly, because every time I tried to speak, the corruption made my voice into something that terrified everyone. She told them about Elle’s arrival, her marks, the growing bond between us, the Hunt’s attack at Mirror Lake.
“We have nine days until the convergence,” I managed to rasp out. “Auradelle will try to force her to merge Root and Bloom.”
“And if she refuses?” Thrak asked.
“Then the convergence fails,” I said. “The imbalance between Root and Bloom becomes permanent. The realm tears itself apart.” I met his gaze. “Elle is human. She’s the only one who can bridge both forces. Without her, there’s no convergence. Just collapse.”
“And you know this how?”
“The bond,” I said. “I feel what she feels. I see glimpses of what Auradelle plans. He needs her alive, needs her willing, or his ritual fails and takes everything with it.”
Thrak studied me with his one good eye. “So we’re not just rescuing the girl. We’re preventing the end of the realm.”
“I don’t care about the realm,” I said flatly. “I care about her. But yes—saving her saves everything else.” I stood, and the corruption spread another inch, visible through my shirt now—black veins creating a web across my chest. “Help me get her back, or get out of my way.”
Thrak studied me for a long moment. “My grandfather helped build the Heartspire,” he said finally. “Before Auradelle took power. Before the walls became a prison. He told me about tunnels beneath the fortress. Root-carved passages that predate the Crown’s occupation.”
We’d discussed this at Thornwood, during the strategy sessions I’d barely been able to focus on because all I’d wanted was to find Elle, pull her away from the council table, and steal more time with her while we still had it.
Hope, painful and sharp, flared in my chest. “The sealed passages. Can we break through?”
“Seals can be broken. Especially by someone the Root recognizes.” He looked meaningfully at my marks. “Or someone corrupted enough to force their way through.”
“Then we use the tunnels.”
“It’s not that simple,” Vera spoke up. “The Heartspire has two walls—the outer is ceremonial, easy enough if you’re not spotted.
But the inner wall…” She pulled out an old map, hand-drawn on leather.
“Forty feet high, topped with massive spikes that burn Root-touched on contact. Your corruption especially would light up like a beacon.”
“I don’t care about burns.”
“You should. These wards don’t just burn—they mark. Every Crown soldier in the Heartspire would know exactly where you are.”
The corruption pulsed, and I had to grip the table to keep from destroying it. The ancient wood began to rot under my touch, centuries of growth withering in seconds.
“Stop destroying my furniture,” Thrak growled, but there was no real heat in it. He’d seen what I’d done to the trees outside—an entire grove withered because I’d leaned against one trunk while trying to feel Elle through our dying bond.
Through the muffled bond, so faint I might have imagined it, I felt Elle’s defiance like a distant flame. She was fighting. She was surviving. She was waiting for me.
“Mine,” I sent through the connection, pushing so hard that dark blood ran from my nose. “Always.”
And impossibly, faintly, I felt her response—not words, but a feeling. Recognition. Love. Fear for me, even now. And underneath it all: “Hurry.”
“How long to prepare?” I asked.
“Give us four days,” Thrak said. “We can gather forces, plan the assault properly—”
“Four days?” I stood so fast the chair disintegrated. “We have nine days until convergence. I’m not wasting half of our time planning when she’s suffering right now.”
“That’s suicide.”
“That’s necessary.” The corruption surged, and several people stepped back as the temperature dropped twenty degrees. “I leave in three days, with or without help. That gives us six days to reach her and get out before the convergence.”
Thrak and Vashael exchanged looks.
“Three days to prepare, five days to travel, and one night of rest before all hell breaks loose” Vashael said slowly. “That’s… tight. But possible.”
“It has to be,” I said. “Because I’m done waiting. I’m done being careful. I’m done watching the people I—” I stopped, the words catching. “I’m done losing what matters.”
Peeble landed on my shoulder again.
“She knows you’re coming,” the creature said quietly. “She can feel you through the bond. It’s the only thing keeping her from breaking.”
“Then we’d better not disappoint her,” Thrak said, already pulling out more maps. “Three days to prepare. You’re going to need every advantage we can give you. Because breaking into the Heartspire before convergence? That’s not a rescue mission. That’s a declaration of war.”
“Good,” I said, and my smile made several rebels step back. “I’ve been wanting to burn something down.”
The corruption spread another inch, and somewhere in the distance, I felt Elle shiver.
Nine days until convergence.
“Hold on,” I whispered into our dying bond. “I’m coming. And I’m bringing Hell with me.”
And through the fading connection, I felt her response—not words, but a memory. The taste of peppermint and chocolate. The feeling of her hands in my hair. The sound of her laugh when I’d tried to tell a joke and failed spectacularly.
The memory of three days at Thornwood when we’d had everything, before the world had stolen it away.
I was getting those days back.
Even if I had to destroy the entire realm to do it.