CHAPTER 488: BOUND

When they emerged from the vault, the air itself felt reborn.

The forest was no longer the same Lorienya they had descended through. Every leaf shimmered faintly with inner light, as though dew had turned to captured starlight. The ground beneath their boots hummed softly, an echo of the dormant Heart far below, now threaded through the roots and streams above.

Ashwing hovered, wings half-spread, turning slow circles in the golden air. "Okay... did someone repaint the entire forest while we were gone?"

Nysha’s crimson eyes flicked around, sharp and wary. "The mana density has tripled. Every plant, every stone, it’s... breathing."

Lindarion didn’t answer immediately. His gaze swept the horizon, his golden eyes reflecting a thousand tiny flickers of light. The wind carried faint harmonics, as if a choir of unseen voices sang beneath the rustling of leaves.

"What did you do down there?" Nysha asked at last, voice softer now.

Lindarion rested a hand on the bark of a nearby tree. The wood pulsed faintly in response, recognizing him, not as an intruder, but as kin. "I gave it choice," he murmured.

The leaves rustled as though in understanding.

They began walking toward the open valley that stretched to the southern edge of the forest. As they passed, creatures stirred, silver stags, luminous moths, birds with feathers like glass. None fled. They only watched, aware in ways they hadn’t been before.

It was as though the world itself had gained sentience, subtle and vast.

Ashwing’s tail flicked uneasily. "I don’t like this. Nature shouldn’t watch back."

"Nature has always watched," Lindarion said. "We just never listened."

Nysha slowed, eyes narrowing as she crouched by a stream. The water was bright, too bright, and beneath its surface, faint symbols rippled, the same runes that had lined the vault walls. "This isn’t natural evolution. The Tree’s influence has spread beyond its roots. It’s rewriting the land’s structure."

Lindarion nodded. "The Heart tried to consume creation. The Tree preserved it. I forced them to meet halfway."

Ashwing groaned. "You merged two divine systems. Do you have any idea what that means?"

"I do." Lindarion’s tone didn’t rise, but something in it made both Nysha and Ashwing go quiet. "It means the world isn’t a weapon anymore."

Nysha stood slowly. "You’ve changed the natural law."

"No," he said quietly. "I’ve reminded it that it can change itself."

The words hung in the luminous air like a vow.

They walked until they reached a rise overlooking the southern plains. What should have been rolling fields of gold was instead a shimmering expanse of mist and crystal.

Massive roots arced across the landscape like veins of light, pulsing with energy. And above, storm clouds gathered, not gray, but iridescent, churning with golden lightning and violet rain.

Ashwing landed on Lindarion’s shoulder, tail curling around his neck. "That’s not weather," he said. "That’s a birth."

Nysha’s expression hardened. "A convergence."

Lindarion’s eyes glowed faintly. "Yes. The new cycle has already begun."

They watched as tendrils of radiant mist twisted upward into the sky, merging with the storm. Shapes formed within the haze, faint outlines of creatures not seen in millennia: winged serpents, spirits of the old forests, the silent silhouettes of ancient guardians.

The demi-god Veyrath’s words echoed faintly in Lindarion’s mind. ’Roots feed as much as they bind.’

Nysha turned to him. "If this spreads beyond Lorienya—"

"It will," he interrupted. "But not as corruption. As memory."

Ashwing’s wings drooped. "You keep saying that, but memory can rot just like flesh. You’re sure this won’t twist into something worse?"

Lindarion looked to the horizon, his expression unreadable. "No. But I’ll be there when it does."

The sky rumbled, golden lightning forking down into the far distance. Somewhere beyond that storm lay the southern realms, the broken plains where Dythrael’s prison pulsed, faint and waiting.

Nysha followed his gaze. "You still mean to go."

"Yes."

"The Heart almost killed you."

"I woke it," Lindarion said simply. "I’ll see where it leads."

He began walking again, and the forest seemed to part before him, branches shifting aside like servants of instinct. The song in the air rose, a low, resonant harmony that followed his every step.

Ashwing sighed, muttering, "You’re turning into a myth, you know that?"

"Not yet," Lindarion replied. "Myths don’t bleed."

Behind them, the glow of Lorienya faded slowly into the mist, replaced by the vast, unknowable horizon of the South.

The wind carried the faint scent of storm and ash.

And somewhere far ahead, beyond mortal lands, beyond the veil of the storm, something ancient stirred in answer to his arrival.

The southern borderlands were nothing like the golden forests of Lorienya.

By the third day of travel, the air had changed, thickened with iron and silence. The green canopy thinned into twisted groves, their roots exposed and gnarled, drinking from veins of blackened soil. The wind no longer sang; it whispered. Every gust carried with it a dry, metallic taste, like breath from the mouth of a long-dead god.

Ashwing perched on Lindarion’s shoulder, unusually quiet. His tail twitched, wings half-furled as his eyes scanned the horizon. "You feel that?"

Nysha’s fingers rested lightly on the hilt of her daggers. "The mana here... it’s fractured. Like glass that remembers how to cut."

Lindarion nodded. "Residual divine energy. The boundary of the prison begins here."

They crested a ridge, and the landscape below spread out in stark contrast to the living forests behind them. Massive canyons cleaved the land, their walls lined with glowing runes half-buried in dust. Rivers of silver mist drifted through the ravines, curling like spirits searching for lost flesh.

At the very center stood the remains of what must once have been a citadel, a colossal structure of white stone now cracked and hollow. Around it, faint figures moved among the ruins. Not living in the usual sense; their forms shimmered faintly, translucent, their motions too fluid to belong to mortals.

Nysha drew a slow breath. "Demi-humans."

Lindarion’s golden eyes narrowed slightly. "What’s left of them."

Ashwing tilted his head. "They don’t look hostile."

"They’re not," Lindarion said. "They’re bound."

As they descended, the spectral figures turned, one by one, as if noticing them for the first time. The nearest of them, a tall woman with wings made of cracked light, stepped forward. Her voice, when she spoke, was hollow, as though echoing from beneath deep water.

"Traveler of living breath," she said, eyes empty yet knowing. "Why have you come to the husk of the forgotten?"

Lindarion stopped a few paces away. "To break what should have never been made."

Her expression didn’t change, but the runes along her collarbone pulsed faintly. "The seal was not meant to be touched. It is older than sorrow, older than the sun."

"And yet it weakens," Lindarion replied softly. "You feel it too."

The spirit’s gaze lowered, and for a moment, the faintest trace of weariness passed through her face. "Yes. Every dawn, the chains hum louder. The god below stirs, and our memories thin. Soon, we will forget even our names."

Nysha stepped closer, studying the spirit with both fascination and pity. "Who bound you here?"