Chapter 30 Kaelren
Kaelren
The tunnel entrance loomed before us like an open wound in the earth, ancient stone carved with symbols that predated the division of courts. Three days. We had three days until the Convergence, and two of those would be spent crawling through darkness to reach Elle.
Three days felt like both forever and not nearly enough time.
“We camp here tonight,” I said, studying the entrance. My corruption had spread further during the day’s travel—black veins now crawled down my back and legs. “We enter at first light.”
“Smart,” Vashael agreed, already scouting the perimeter for defensible positions. “We’ll need rest before two days underground.”
The others moved with practiced efficiency, setting up our makeshift camp.
Sarnyx created a thorned barrier around our perimeter.
Nimor melted into shadows to stand watch.
Eltrien sat cross-legged, his marks pulsing in patterns that might have been meditation or might have been communication with forces I didn’t understand.
And Bryx… Bryx was unusually quiet, sitting apart from the group with Kevin perched on his shoulder, their usual banter replaced by intense, whispered conversation punctuated by the bee’s agitated buzzing.
“You alright?” I asked, approaching him.
He startled, then forced a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Fine. Just… thinking about what we’re walking into.”
“Having second thoughts?”
“No.” The answer came too quickly. “No, I’m committed. We save Elle. That’s the plan.”
Something in his tone didn’t sit right, but before I could press him, Vashael called me over to help reinforce the barrier. By the time I looked back, Bryx had retreated to his tent, Kevin’s buzzing fading to silence.
I pushed my unease aside. We all dealt with pre-battle nerves differently.
After everything was settled and seemed quiet, I crawled into my tent.
I hated to sleep away from the stars knowing it could be the last time I saw them, but I didn’t want the crew fretting over the expanse of corruption that ate at my very soul.
Exhaustion pulled me under almost the moment I closed my eyes.
I should have realized immediately I was in the dreamscape we’d created before. Elle stood waiting for me, and the sight of her made my chest constrict with desperate longing.
She looked exhausted. Bruises shadowed her eyes, and like myself her marks had spread further. We were really two sides of the same coin. Two halves of a whole. But she was alive. She was here. And she was mine.
“Elle,” I breathed, crossing to her in three strides and pulling her against me.
She melted into my embrace, trembling. “Kaelren. God, I’ve missed you.”
“I’m coming for you. Three more days—”
“I know. I can feel you getting closer.” She pulled back enough to look at me, her Earth-green eyes fierce despite her exhaustion. “But there’s something you need to know. Something I learned.”
I cupped her face in my hands, marveling that in this space, my touch didn’t burn. “Tell me everything.”
“The seed,” she said urgently. “Beneath the Heartspire, hidden in chambers even Auradelle doesn’t know exist—there’s a seed. The original seed, from before the first flowering. It’s been waiting, growing, preparing for a second chance.”
“A second flowering?” Understanding dawned slowly. “You mean—”
“I mean the Bloom they’ve imprisoned, the one they’ve been using to maintain their hierarchy for generations—it’s dying because it was never meant to be controlled like this.
It was supposed to be wild, free, constantly evolving.
But they caged it, forced it into stagnation, and now it’s rotting from the inside out.
” Her eyes blazed with fierce certainty.
“But the seed… Kaelren, when the Crown first corrupted the Bloom, when they built their throne and their hierarchy on stolen power, the Root felt it. Felt the imbalance, felt how wrong it all was. So it did the only thing it could. It created a failsafe.”
“The seed,” I breathed, understanding dawning.
“The seed,” she confirmed. “Hidden so deep that no one who served the Crown would ever find it. A second chance, growing in darkness, waiting for someone to come along who wasn’t trying to rule the power but free it.
The Root has been trying to correct this for generations, trying to undo what the Crown did.
But it can’t force the change—it can only offer the opportunity.
” Her hands gripped my shirt desperately.
“We have to find it, Kaelren. We have to be the ones who finally accept what the Root has been offering all along. The chance to let the Bloom be what it was always meant to be—wild, free, growing without chains or thrones or anyone trying to own it.”
“How do you know this?”
“Peeble showed me.” She took a shaky breath. “Kaelren, Peeble isn’t just a beetle. They’re the First Elle. The original marked one, transformed by the Root into something that could persist through iterations, always watching, always hoping someone would finally break the cycle.”
The revelation should have shocked me more, but after everything we’d seen, everything we’d survived, it made a terrible kind of sense.
“Where is this seed?” I asked.
“Deep beneath the ritual chamber. There’s a passage that branches off the main tunnels—you’ll know it when you feel it.
The Root’s presence is stronger there, older.
” Her eyes searched mine. “You have to get it, Kaelren. When the Convergence comes, when Auradelle tries to force the merger—the seed is our only chance to break the pattern.”
“I’ll find it,” I promised. “No matter what it takes.”
She stood on her toes and kissed me, soft and desperate. When she pulled back, tears tracked down her cheeks. “I love you. I need you to know that, before everything goes wrong. I love you so much it terrifies me.”
“Elle—”
“Julian made me afraid of this feeling. Afraid of being vulnerable, of trusting someone with something this precious.” Her voice cracked. “But you… you’ve never asked me to be anything other than what I am. You’ve never tried to dim me or control me or reshape me into something more convenient.”
I pulled her close again, burying my face in her hair. “I love you too. With everything corrupted and twisted in me, I love you. You’re the only real thing left in my life.”
“Then show me,” she whispered against my neck. “Before we face what’s coming, before everything falls apart—show me.”
I pulled back to look at her, needing to be sure. “Elle, you don’t have to—”
“I want to,” she said fiercely. “I want this moment with you. Something that’s just ours, untouched by prophecy or politics or poison. Please.”
How could I deny her anything?
I kissed her again, deeper this time, pouring every ounce of desperate love into the contact. Her hands found my hair, tugging until I groaned against her mouth. When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard.
“Let me worship you properly,” I said, voice rough. “The way you deserve.”
The dreamscape shifted around us, responding to our combined need.
A rustic treehouse formed around us with a vast valley below and a sky full of constellations above.
A bed appeared, carved from oak and covered in velvet and violet colored petals.
I guided Elle to it, laying her down with reverence.
“You’re so beautiful. I know I’ve said it so many times, but it never does you justice.” I murmured, tracing the path of her marks with my fingertips. “These marks—they’re not corruption or curse. They’re you claiming your power, becoming who you were always meant to be.”
She arched into my touch. “Kaelren, please—”
“Patience, love.” I kissed the hollow of her throat, feeling her pulse race beneath my lips. “I’ve missed this. Let me savor it.”
I took my time undressing her, my hands trembling slightly as they found the hem of her shirt.
I lifted it slowly, my fingers trailing against her skin like I was memorizing the feeling—the softness, the warmth, the way she shivered under my touch.
When the fabric was gone, my lips followed the path my hands had traced, pressing soft kisses to her collarbone, her shoulder, the sensitive spot where her neck met her jaw that I’d discovered made her breath catch.
“You’re a miracle,” I murmured against her skin, meaning every word. “Do you know that? Everything about you is impossible and perfect.”
She opened her mouth—probably to argue, to list all the ways she thought she was flawed—but I kissed her before she could, swallowing whatever protest she’d been about to make. We moved together, clothes disappearing with dream-logic until we were finally skin to skin.
The feel of her against me, nothing between us, nearly undid me completely.
“Wait,” I said, pulling back with visible effort. An idea had struck me, something I’d never tried with anyone else, something that felt right for her. For us.
I reached up to the tree that formed the walls of our dreamscape sanctuary, to where golden sap leaked from the bark. It came away on my fingers like honey, warm and sweet-smelling, glowing faintly in the amber light.
“What are you—” Elle started.
“Trust me,” I said, meeting her eyes.
“Always,” she breathed, and the simple trust in that word made my chest ache.
I traced one finger, slick with sap, across her collarbone. She gasped at the warmth of it, the slight stickiness. Then I leaned down and followed the path with my tongue, lapping up the sweetness, tasting her skin beneath it—salt and Earth-rain and something uniquely Elle.
“Oh,” she breathed, her back arching slightly.
I took my time, painting patterns across her skin with the golden sap—down her sternum, across the swell of her breasts, along her ribs where her marks glowed brightest. Each application made her gasp.
Each time I followed with my mouth, tasting honey and her, she made sounds that went straight to my groin.