The Order hadn't just been burning Hollows to hide their experiments.
They'd been trying to starve this thing.
Because the corruption wasn't an accident.
It was a cage.
And Kael had just broken it.
The First Guardian's voice was not a sound it was a presence, scraping against their minds like rusted chains. Liora stumbled back, her boots sinking into the soft, rotting earth as the creature loomed over them. Its body was a nightmare of contradictions: sinewy muscle fused with splintered wood, eyes like cracked amber glowing with a hunger that had festered for centuries.
Little Liora, it crooned, tilting its head with a grotesque mimicry of tenderness. You wear your ancestor's face. The one who bound me here. Do you taste their guilt in your blood?
"Stay back!" Tari shouted, thrusting an arm in front of Kael, who knelt clutching his bleeding wrist. His blood thick and unnaturally dark pooled in the soil, tendrils of smoke rising where it met the corrupted ground.
But the Guardian didn't advance. Instead, it crouched, its clawed hands sinking into the earth. The forest around them shuddered. Trees bent away as if repelled, their leaves curling into brittle husks.
You think me a monster, it said, the words slithering into Tari's skull. But I was their first truth. The Order's founders needed soldiers to tame the wilds, so they carved them from their own flesh. My flesh. Its ember-eyes locked onto Kael. Your blood is theirs. You carry their sin… and their fear.
Liora choked back a sob. The journals… the blacked-out pages… They weren't hiding failed experiments. They were hiding you. They couldn't kill you, so they trapped you here. Fed you scraps of corruption to keep you weak
And you, the Guardian hissed, swiveling toward Tari. The forest's little sapling. Do you know why it chose you? Not for your courage. Not for your heart. Because you are empty.
Tari recoiled. What?
The Hollows are born of hunger, but you… you are a vessel. The forest filled your cracks with its light because you had nothing left to lose. A perfect puppet.
The words struck deeper than any claw. Tari's hand flew to the Luminescent Seed at her throat its glow dimmed, as if ashamed.
Kael lurched to his feet, swaying. Don't listen to it, Tari! It's lying to...
The Guardian moved faster than thought. One moment it crouched; the next, it loomed over Kael, its taloned hand cinching his throat. You woke me, little sacrifice. Now your blood will feed me.
No! Liora lunged, but the creature backhanded her without glancing away. She crumpled, her cheek split and bleeding.
Tari's fear crystallized into fury. She grabbed the Whispering Blade from her belt its edge hummed, resonating with the forest's song and slashed at the Guardian's arm. The blade bit deep, not into flesh, but into the corruption webbing its body. Black ichor sprayed, and the creature roared, dropping Kael.
You cannot kill me, it snarled, clutching its wound. I am the wound the Order could never close.
Maybe not,Tari panted, stepping between it and the siblings. But I don't need to kill you. I need to wake you up.
She slammed her palm against the Luminescent Seed. Light erupted not the warm gold of sunlight, but the cold, searing blue of a star's core. The beam struck the Guardian's chest, searing away layers of rot and twisted bark. Beneath, nestled in a cage of bone, was a pulsing orb of green a tiny, dying heart, strangled by black vines.
NO!!!!!!!! The Guardian staggered, clawing at its chest. You cannot! They made me forget!
The forest didn't abandon you, Tari said, her voice trembling with effort as the Seed's light scorched her palm. The Order buried your heart. This is what they caged.
The creature froze. For a heartbeat, its amber eyes flickered the green of new leaves, the soft brown of soil. A human face seemed to bleed through the monstrosity: a man, weary and sorrowful.
Then the ground exploded.
Vines as thick as temple pillars burst from the soil, wrapping the Guardian in a cocoon of thorns and glowing moss. The forest itself was moving, roots knifing upward to drag the creature deeper into the earth.
Do not pity me… its voice gurgled, half-swallowed by the soil. The corruption… is yours now…
As the last of its form vanished, the clearing fell silent.
Then Kael gagged.
The cut on his wrist was no longer bleedingit was swarming. Thin black filaments crawled up his arm, burrowing under his skin. His veins darkened, branching like cracks in glass.
It's in him, Liora whispered, horror-struck. The Guardian's corruption. It's using Kael as an anchor to survive.
Tari knelt, pressing her seared hand to Kael's chest. The Seed's light flared, and he screamed a raw, animal sound as the black veins recoiled.
It's not enough,Tari hissed. The corruption's rooted too deep. We need...
The Order's citadel, Liora interrupted. Her voice was hollow. They have a cure. Or… they did. In the labs where they made the first Guardians.
Kael laughed bitterly, sweat dripping down his ashen face. Oh good. So we just need to break into the place that wants us dead. Again.
Tari stared at the spot where the Guardian had been swallowed. The earth there was blighted, a spreading circle of decay.
The corruption is yours now.
She stood. Then we don't have a choice.
But as they turned to leave, the trees rustled not with wind, but with voices. Dozens of voices.
Shapes emerged from the shadows: twisted, half-rotted figures with glowing eyes. Hollows.
But these did not attack.
They knelt.
And the forest, for the first time, whispered a warning to Tari not in her mind, but in the Hollows' jagged, echoing words:
The Guardian's heart is yours to carry, He will return when the cage is empty.
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