Blood & Root

Prologue: The Age of Adaeze

Before the world dimmed, the cities shone in impossible color. Towers of crystal and steel rose like prisms, catching the sun and scattering it across bridges crowded with cars and people. Life moved fast, bright, and upward—until The Collective decided it shouldn’t.

For generations, House Adaeze shaped the land itself. Their magic was like breathing, steady and inherent, used only when the world needed it most. They rebuilt ruined ground, restored stripped land, and breathed life back into places beginning to fail. Their presence kept the continent balanced and prosperous. Their magic had another side—one that The Collective never forgave nor understood.

In the last great war, when the armies of Kratos marched on the gates of Loriah, King Verix Adaeze, Arin’s grandfather, stepped onto the battlements barefoot, his palms pressed to the stone. Stories say the wind went silent for a heartbeat, as if the world itself paused.

“Be wary—those who threaten this land, my people, and the City of Loriah. For my love is equally matched with my rage.” King Adaeze’s voice boomed over the valley like a thunderstorm of sound and fury.

Then King Adaeze called it forward. Winds from every corner of the continent converged at his command, roaring through the valley with a force that tore banners from poles and lifted soldiers off their feet.

By dawn, the invading army had fled—scattered like ash on the horizon. Restoration was an Adaeze’s purpose—destruction was within their grasp. That duality made them impossible to control. The Collective moved quickly after King Adaeze’s victory. One by one, the Adaeze bloodline was slaughtered—hunted down and killed until the world believed their lineage had been eradicated.

One heir survived. Hidden by those still loyal to House Adaeze. The child grew up knowing the truth. The Collective had destroyed her family, taken their city, and tried to erase them from history. She had learned her family’s legacy long before they stole it. And she remembered how her mother weaved the secrets and purpose of their magic into song.

Princess Arin Adaeze, granddaughter of King Verix Adaeze. And when the world eventually fell, she would be the one who carried its final hope—in blood and root.

Part One: Rebellion

Arin, eighteen and full of purpose, tore through the air above Draxia Prime—once the Great City of Loriah, before The Collective renamed it after wiping out her bloodline.

The wind screamed past her ears, the crystal spires flashing in fractured blues and greens as sirens wailed below.

She was louder.

“RISE WITH ME!”

She dropped fast, boots slamming into the courtyard where rebels and Brazers, The Collective’s soldiers, were already clashing. The stone cracked under her landing.

Shell shouted, “There she is! Took you long enough!”

“Miss me?” Arin called back, smirking, as she caught the blade Thatch tossed her without looking.

“Not even a little,” Thatch said, deadpan, already moving to cover her flank.

Arin grinned and launched herself into the fight. A twist, a strike, a kick—soldiers fell as if she’d rehearsed this moment in her sleep. Shell swung her pipe with wild glee, yelling curses that didn’t even make sense. Thatch fought like a shadow, cunning and precise.

Across the courtyard, Blaine vaulted over a fallen guard, shouting orders to the younger rebels. He caught Arin’s eye for half a second, grinned, then disappeared back into the fray.

“Left side’s clear!” Thatch called.

Shell darted past them, a wild grin splitting her face. “Watch this!” she yelled.

“Shell, don’t—” Arin started, already knowing it was pointless.

“Too late!” Shell crowed, swinging her pipe in a reckless arc that sent two soldiers stumbling back.

Arin rolled her eyes and couldn’t help the laugh that slipped out.

“Right side’s mine!” she shouted, slamming her shoulder into a guard and sending him sprawling.

It wasn’t a long fight. It wasn’t even close. The rebels overwhelmed the last patrol, and the courtyard erupted—cheers, laughter, bodies collapsing into relieved embraces.

After their victory, at their hideout, Shell shoved a beer into Arin’s hand. “For the Adaeze!” she yelled.

Arin snorted. “Dammit, Shell… don’t say that too loud. They’ll think I’m recruiting.”

Shell threw an arm around her. “You are recruiting. Look at you. You’re a walking resistance flyer.”

“I’m sweaty and covered in someone else’s blood,” Arin replied.

“Exactly,” Shell said. “Iconic.”

Thatch shook his head, smiling.

Arin took a long drink. The alcohol hit her like a second heartbeat. She was already buzzing from adrenaline, and now she felt loose, warm, utterly alive.

Then she saw Blaine.

He stood at the edge of the crowd, chest heaving, sweat streaking his jaw. When he saw her looking, he grinned—wide, bright, the kind of grin that made her weak in the knees and forget the world was fractured.

Arin pushed through the crowd. “You gonna stand there looking pretty, or—”

Blaine didn’t get to answer. She grabbed him by the collar and kissed him hard, passionately, tasting beer and blood and victory.

The rebels howled.

Shell hollered, “Get a room!”

Thatch muttered, “About damn time,” like he’d been waiting for this to happen for weeks.

Arin pulled back, breathless, and lifted her beer high. “For Loriah!” she shouted, using the name The Collective tried to bury.

The rebels echoed it back— “For Loriah!” —and Arin launched into the old rebellion song, the one her grandfather used to sing. Her voice cracked, but she didn’t care. The crowd joined her, loud and off-key.

Blaine—on the other hand, did not.

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. His fingers tightened around the bottle in his hand—a twitch, barely there. And when the song hit the line about the winds rising to defend the gates, he looked away, jaw tightening like the memory scraped something raw inside him.

Arin didn’t notice. She was too drunk, too full of hope, too wrapped up in the moment to imagine anything was wrong.

Tonight, she was untouchable.

Because tomorrow—everything could break.

***

Two years stripped the rebellion down to bone.Outposts fell. Safehouses burned. Allies vanished into prisons or graves. Now twenty, Arin had learned to live on adrenaline, ration bars, and the nausea she blamed on stress and exhaustion. She told herself it was nothing. Until she was convinced it wasn’t.

Blaine grew distant. Missions he didn’t explain. Meetings he didn’t attend. Smiles that never reached his eyes. He fought beside them sometimes, which felt like fighting beside a ghost.

At dawn, her wrist-com buzzed once—Blaine’s ID tag, a priority ping.

Blaine: I’ve been hearing whispers inside Draxia. I think there’s dissent. We can get our people inside the city. Meet me in Harrigan Square. Come alone.

Arin didn’t go alone. Shell and Thatch refused to let her.

Harrigan, the old tech district, rose around them in rusted towers and dead screens. Once, it had been the heart of Loriah’s innovation. Labs, workshops, servers with glowing blue wires of connectivity. Now it was a graveyard of metal and memory. Wind whistled through broken vents. Old holo-ads flickered with static ghosts.

“I hate this,” Shell muttered, her pipe resting on her shoulder.

“You hate everything,” Thatch said.

“Not like this.”

Arin swallowed another wave of nausea and kept walking. She didn’t want to admit how often it hit her now. How often she woke dizzy. How often she felt… changed.

They turned a corner. Arin stopped. The air tasted metallic—charged, like a weapon warming up. She opened her mouth to warn them—

Blaine stepped out from behind a collapsed transit pillar, shadows cutting across his face. He looked thinner. Sharper. Like someone had carved the softness out of him.

“You came,” he said.

“You said there was dissent within Draxia,” she replied. “Right?”

Blaine nodded once. ‘There are people in the city who want The Collective gone. Engineers. Medics. A few former Loriah soldiers. They’re ready to help us get inside the walls. We have to move fast. I can take you to my contact.”

Shell’s eyes narrowed. “Why here? Why meet you here?”

“Because Harrigan is dead. Rarely patrolled.”

“Too dead,” Thatch murmured, looking around.

Arin stepped closer, reaching for Blaine’s hand. “Blaine… what’s really going on?”

He stepped back. Opening his mouth, then closing it.

A metal shutter slammed. Then another. Then all of them.

Brazers stepped out from the doorways of abandoned buildings, boots thudding against the pavement. More appeared on the catwalks above, rifles trained down. The district sealed around them like a closing fist.

Shell shoved Arin behind her. “Arin—move! Now!”

“It’s a trap,” Thatch said.

Blaine’s voice cracked. “I’m sorry.”

Arin stared at him, eyes wide in shock, breath shaking. “Blaine… what did you do?”

He moved.

Fast. Efficient. No hesitation in his body, no wasted motion. Arin barely blocked the first strike; the second forced her back. She tried to reach him, tried to see something familiar in his face. He gave her nothing.

“BLAINE—please,” she choked. “I love you.”

In that moment, he faltered.

A half-second. A breath.

Then he came at her again.

Arin stumbled, vision swimming—and something flared under her ribs. A pulse of heat, sharp and instinctive, her magic reacting before she could think. She knelt down, hands pressed against the pavement. Then it pushed outward in a brief, invisible ripple, knocking Blaine off his feet and sending him backward into the approaching Brazer soldiers.

Thatch cut down the Brazers approaching from the left. Shell swung her pipe in a vicious arc, clearing a narrow path between two rusted towers.

“Go!” Thatch shouted.

Shell grabbed Arin’s arm, yanking her up and dragging her through the opening as soldiers surged forward. Thatch followed behind them seconds later.

“Stop,” Arin commanded, snatching her arm away from Shell.

“What the hell,” she protested. “We have to get you out of here.”

Arin didn’t respond, simply touched one of the rusted towers, and they watched as she formed a barrier of pristine steel. The building renewed.

“Now we can go.”

They ran. Never looking back.

Blaine didn’t follow. He watched her go, expression unreadable as she walled up Harrigan Square.

***

They didn’t stop running until the rusted towers of Harrigan Square were nothing but jagged shadows behind them. Shell led the way, breath ragged, pipe still clenched in her hand. Thatch stayed behind Arin, half-carrying her when her knees buckled.

“Almost there,” Shell said. “Old rail station’s close. Blaine never knew about it.”

Arin barely heard her. Her chest burned. Her vision blurred at the edges. Every step felt like she was walking through quicksand.

They slipped through a broken fence and into the remains of an underground station—cracked tiles, dead lights, the faint smell of oil and dust. Shell dropped her pipe with a clatter and slid the metal door shut behind them.

They were safe. For now.

Shell turned toward Arin and spoke softly. “You used your magic.”

“I know.”

“Arin—you used your magic.”

“I KNOW,” Arin shouted, the sound reverberating off the walls.

Arin leaned against a pillar, trying to breathe. The nausea hit again, sharper this time, curling her forward.

Shell knelt beside her. “Arin, hey—look at me. Are you okay?

“No,” she whispered. “I don’t think so.”

Thatch crouched on her other side. “Then what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” she said—but some part of her did. Inside… she felt off-balance. Too warm. Too bright.

Then it happened.

A pulse—not outward, not from her touch—from deep within her core. A flare of heat, sharp and knowing, like a second heartbeat slamming against her ribs. Her magic surged without her calling it, without her even needing it.

She gasped and doubled over.

Shell grabbed her shoulders. “Arin!”

Thatch’s eyes widened. “Her magic—”

Arin shook her head, breath breaking. “It’s not… my magic.”

Another pulse. Softer this time. Protective. Answering hers.

She knew.

Adaeze magic didn’t move like that unless—

Like when her mother was pregnant with her younger brother, Jule.

Her hand pressed to her stomach. “No,” she cried. “No, no, no…”

Shell froze. “Arin… what is it?”

Arin’s voice cracked. “I’m pregnant. Dammit, Blaine.”

The revelation hung in the cold air of the abandoned station, heavier than the betrayal, than the ambush, than the war waiting outside.

Shell’s breath hitched. Thatch froze.

And Arin felt the magic pulse again.

***

Two more years later, Arin had turned into something much sharper. Harder.

The softness she once carried had been carved away by hunger, loss, and the constant fear of being found. She moved like a blade now—quick, decisive, unyielding.

Alyrah toddled beside her, dark curls bouncing, humming as she dragged her fingers along the cracked concrete wall. Wherever her small hand passed, the moss brightened. A dying vine lifted its head—restored. The cracks sealed as if they had never seen damage or decay.

Arin snatched her wrist. “Alyrah. STOP.”

The girl recoiled, blinking up at her mother, wide-eyed and confused. “Mama?”

Shell stepped in immediately, scooping Alyrah up with practiced ease. “Hey, little star. Come help me find the shiny rocks.” Alyrah giggled and buried her face in Shell’s shoulder.

Arin exhaled, rubbing her temples in slow circles. “She can’t keep doing that. Someone will see.”

Thatch leaned against the rusted rail of the old station platform. “She’s two, Arin. She doesn’t understand.”

“She has to,” Arin snapped. “If she restores the land and infrastructure again, we’re all dead.”

Shell shot her a look—part anger, part understanding. “You have to be patient with her. And Thatch is right. She’s just a child.”

She’s Adaeze, Shell.” Arin said clipped. “She doesn’t get to be just a child.”

The words tasted like ash. She hated them. Hated herself for saying them. But they were true.

Alyrah wriggled in Shell’s arms, tiny fingers reaching toward a wilted fern growing through the tiles.

“No, Alyrah,” Arin said sharply.

Alyrah flinched.

Shell held her closer. “It’s okay, baby. Mommy’s scared.”

Arin turned away. She couldn’t look at her daughter’s face—not when she was the one putting fear into it.

Thatch’s voice was low. “The scouts came back. Draxia’s forces are moving. It’s a big push. Bigger than anything we’ve seen before. They’re coming for the last of us.”

Arin closed her eyes. “Then it’s time.”

Shell stiffened. “Arin—”

“You know what this means,” Arin said bluntly. “If they take me, they’ll take her. If they kill me, they’ll kill her. We can’t let either happen. We fight like hell—until the end.”

A distant boom shook dust from the rafters. The battle had begun.

Thatch grabbed his pack. “We’ll get Alyrah somewhere safe.”

Arin nodded. “Take her into the deep tunnels. The ones under the old freight lines. No one knows them like you do.”

Shell’s voice broke. “Arin, we’ll meet you after we’ve made sure Alyrah and the others are safe.”

Arin nodded, an unexpected smile forming. “Wouldn’t be any fun without you.”

Alyrah reached for her. “Mama, go?”

Arin cupped her daughter’s cheek, memorizing the warmth of her skin. “No, baby. Mama fight,” she said, choking back tears she wouldn’t allow to fall. “You stay with Shell and Thatch.”

Alyrah’s lower lip trembled. “No.”

Arin swallowed hard. “I—,” she looked up at Shell and mouthed ‘I can’t.’ She felt a sharp ache deep in her chest that threatened to spill over.

Shell gave Arin a knowing look, then picked Alyrah up. “Let’s go, little star, you’ll see Mama soon.”

Another explosion roared—reverberating against the walls of the old rail station. Concrete debris falling, dust escaping from the cracks.

Shell and Thatch disappeared through the dark station.

Arin turned toward the rising smoke—walking into the final battle.

***

Shell and Thatch sprinted toward the deep tunnels, where the women and children were already hiding. Alyrah’s cries echoed once, then vanished into the dark as they left her safely stashed away with the others, turning back toward the smoke rising over the city.

Draxia was burning.

Arin met them at the shattered outer wall, rebels forming a ragged line behind her. The city was a maze of broken stone and firelight. Brazer soldiers surged through the streets in armored waves.

Shell and Thatch fell in beside her without a word.

They fought as one. Arin fought mercilessly—her blade cut down Brazer soldiers with practiced ease. Shell swung her pipe with brutal precision. Thatch barreled through soldiers, taking them out with his Kama blades before they could reach Arin’s flank.

Rebels shouted, fell, rose again. The ground shook with every explosion.

Then Blaine stepped through the smoke.

He wore Draxian black, the crest of the Collective gleaming on his chest. His eyes locked on Arin—cold, focused, ferocious.

He didn’t speak.

Didn’t hesitate.

He charged.

Arin met him head-on, steel ringing against steel. Shell slammed into a soldier trying to flank her. Thatch blocked a strike meant for Arin’s throat. Blaine pressed forward relentlessly.

One of Thatch’s blades found Blaine’s heart in the chaos. Blaine staggered, loathing etched across his face—no regret, no recognition—realizing he’d lost.

He dropped to his knees and fell forward.

Arin didn’t have time to breathe as a spear tore through her side. Another sliced across her abdomen.

She stumbled backward, blood soaking her shirt.

“ARIN!” Shell screamed.

They caught her before she hit the ground.

“We have to get her out of here!” Thatch shouted.

Together, they dragged her from the brutal battle, up the ridge, and into the once luminous hilltop valley overlooking the burning city that had once been the thriving City of Loriah. Arin collapsed, gasping, blood pooling beneath her.

Shell was sobbing. Thatch’s hands shook.

“No,” Shell whispered. “No, no, stay with us—please.”

Arin forced a ragged breath. “Listen…you have to go.”

“We’re not leaving you,” Thatch insisted.

“Yes, you are.” Her voice broke. “Take Alyrah. Hide here where no one will ever think to look. Keep her safe.”

Shell shook her head violently. “Arin, please—”

“Forgive me,” Arin whispered. “For how cruel I’ve become. For—everything. Just…survive.”

They clung to her. One. Last. Time.

Arin’s voice sharpened, pushing them away. “GO.”

Shell broke first. Thatch forcibly dragged her away.

They ran.

Arin pressed her bloody fingers deep into the earth. Her magic surging through her, a wild and bright emerald glow.

“Water and air. Fire and earth. Blood and root,” she whispered, “carry it through starlight and time until the world is barren in ruin. When it needs us, an Adaeze will rise.”

The ground pulsed. A gust of wind blew through the hillside.

Arin Adaeze was gone.

Part Two: Survival

A hundred years of winter had buried the crystal spires of Draxia Prime. The world didn’t end in fire. It ended in ice.

Inside the rusted cabin of a scavenged transport hauler, Essah’s hands ached as she gripped the steering controls. The heater had died three miles back. Beside her, five-year-old Mirah sat wrapped in layers of threadbare wool, her small face barely visible.

Her dark eyes were watching the unrelenting white of the blizzard outside.

Mirah whimpered, sliding a bare, freezing hand out of her oversized mitten. She pressed her small palm flat against the dead dashboard vent.

Deep inside the rusted machinery, a faint, impossible emerald glow began to sing. Suddenly, a breath of warm air pushed through the vents, smelling sharply of summer soil and sun-baked leaves.

Essah panicked. She slammed her hand over Mirah’s, yanking the girl’s fingers away from the metal. “Mirah, no,” Essah hissed, shoving the mitten back onto the girl’s hand. “If anyone sees that, we’re dead. You have to stop restoring things.”

Mirah looked up at her mother, tears streaming down her cheeks. She nodded.

“Sorry, Mama.”

“I’m sorry…for getting so upset. Thank you. It’s—it’s very dangerous for us to use our magic.”

“I know.”

“We have to pull over,” Essah muttered, peering through the frosted glass. The snow was a solid, blinding wall. “If we hit a drift in this, we’re dead.”

The transport groaned as she forced it off the ruined highway, aiming for a cluster of brutalist concrete structures looming in the whiteout. It was a scavenger community—a miserable, walled-off outpost where the desperate huddled together.

As Essah drove the transport to a halt near the reinforced gates, the heavy iron doors shoved open. Two guards in thick furs dragged a thrashing, screaming man out into the blizzard.

“Fuck you! You can’t do this!” the man howled, blood freezing on his split lip. “I’ll die out here!”

The guards laughed. “Then you'd better get moving. Port Vale is four clicks South. Get there fast, and you might survive.”

They threw him into the snowdrift and slammed the gates shut, locking the heavy deadbolts.

From the passenger seat, Mirah watched the man bleed into the snow. She didn’t fully understand the world, but she understood the cruelty. Her small hands pressed firmly into the seat. Her eyes flashed with a sudden, sharp heat.

The transport shuddered suddenly. The rusted chassis beneath them began to shriek, twisting inward. The windshield directly in front of Mirah suddenly splintered—crack, crack, crack—spiderwebbing under an invisible, crushing pressure.

“Dammit, Mirah!” Essah cried out, lunging across the console, pulling the girl roughly against her chest. “Calm down, baby. Breath. In and out.”

Mirah let out a muffled, angry sob. The cracking stopped. The metal settled.

Essah didn’t look at the man as she grabbed Mirah and abandoned the dying transport.

***

In this world, pity was a luxury that got you killed. She pounded on the gate, trading the last of her fuel rations for shelter.

The guards took the fuel and pointed to a corner unit near the perimeter wall. “Unit 4. You’re in luck. Just opened up,” one of them grunted.

The unit was freezing and smelled of damp stone. The fireplace looked as if it had never been used. The door barely latched; the metal rusted and warped. Essah pushed a heavy wooden crate against it, her breath pluming in the freezing air.

“Stay behind me, Mirah, while I get a fire going,” Essah said as she took a handful of paper and placed it in the fireplace, lighting it. Then she pulled a heavy iron wrench from her belt.

Mirah didn’t say anything. She watched from the door.

Later that night, scratching sounds woke them.

Then came the growling. Low. Heavy. Hungry.

Essah jumped out of bed, grabbed Mirah, and pushed her toward the far corner of the room. “Quiet,” she whispered.

Snarls vibrated through the thin metal of the door. Then, a massive impact. The rusted hinges popped. A second impact shattered the latch completely, sending the crate skidding across the floor.

Two wolves tore into the room, bringing the blizzard with them.

They were massive, starved, all matted gray fur, snapping jaws, and desperate yellow eyes.

The first one lunged straight for Mirah, snarling as it bared its teeth. The second pivoted, leaping at Essah with a guttural growl.

Essah’s survival instincts overrode her terror. She swung the heavy iron wrench with everything she had, catching the wolf mid-air. The crack of bone echoed over the howling wind.

The beast yelped, tumbling to the floor. Essah didn’t stop—she screamed, a raw, violent sound, and swung again, smashing it against the wolf’s head.

The wolf howled in pain as it scrambled backward, claws slipping on the floor, and bolted back out into the storm.

Panting, heart hammering against her ribs, Essah spun around, wrench raised, ready to kill the second one.

She froze.

The second wolf was inches from Mirah. Its lips were peeled back, saliva dripping from yellowed fangs.

Mirah wasn’t screaming.

She didn’t run or fight back.

The five-year-old took a step forward and raised her hands, chest exposed, as she slowly brought them down to pet the beast.

“Mirah, no!” Essah yelled, unable to cross the room in time.

Mirah didn’t flinch. She looked the starving animal directly in the eyes. And for one terrifying heartbeat, the room went perfectly, impossibly still. The frantic, volatile energy of the world seemed to stop at the edges of her fingertips.

The wolf stopped snapping. Its ears twitched. The vicious snarl melted into a soft, confused whine. Slowly, almost reverently, lowered its head, folded its heavy legs, and lay down on the floor like a tamed puppy.

Mirah lowered her hands on top of the wolf’s head and looked at Essah, her eyes sparkling with the calm of someone much older.

Deep beneath the ice, a hundred years of forgotten magic hummed this little girl’s blood.

Part Three: Restoration

Three hundred years had passed since the great winter broke. The melting ice hadn’t brought the world back to life; it had only drowned it. For centuries, the earth had been nothing but a barren, endless expanse of dirt and thick mud.

Hiding behind a high wooden fence that surrounded the hilltop valley where Neverah’s home stood had been her community’s sanctuary.

For generations, the massive, ancient tree in the center of the valley had kept the small patch of land around it impossibly, vibrantly green, pushing back the rot of the outside world.

Neverah had lost her sister and brother-in-law a few years after the birth of their children, Kira and Ezra.

Fear of the outside world had consumed them. So they buried their faces into the artificial lights of the old world's artifacts. Scavenged data and holo-pads. They’d stared at the screens, immovable, transfixed—dying.

Neverah had buried them in the wet, muddy earth. Her only solace—the great tree. A towering monument with roots deeper than memory.

“Auntie Nev?”

Neverah shifted, pulling herself out of the memory. Eight-year-old Ezra was standing ankle-deep in the mud, his small hand resting on his mother’s headstone. Beside him, twelve-year-old Kira was staring out at the wooden fence.

“Yes, Ezra?”

“Can we go collecting today?”

“No. I’m sorry Ez not today,” she said gently.

“Stop staring at it, Kira,” Neverah chastised, “it’s not going anywhere, and Scavengers don’t come this far North.”

Kira didn’t look away. “So there’s nothing out there but dirt, right? Why can’t we go beyond the wall? See for ourselves.”

Neverah walked down the porch steps, the mud sucking at her boots. She hated the way Kira looked off into the horizon. That they were caged. Secluded from the outside world.

“I know what you’re feeling,” Neverah said softly. She reached the children and embraced Kira in a warm hug. “I do. You’re meant to explore beyond the boundary of our home. It’s natural to want that. But—It’s dangerous.”

Kira looked up at her, frowning. “How do you know it’s dangerous? You’ve never been outside the boundary. What if the elders are lying?”

Neverah looked down at the two headstones. Her chest ached with the weight of how her sister and brother-in-law had been taken from them.

“Don’t say such things, Kira,” Neverah cautioned, her voice dropping to a fierce, protective whisper. She knelt in the mud, so she was eye-level with her niece and nephew. “We don’t question the elders. The people out there… they’re not like us. They’d destroy this community if given the chance. The boundary keeps us safe.”

Ezra looked down at his muddy boots. “Isn’t it dead here, too?”

“Not all of it,” Neverah murmured, looking out toward the great tree. “Wait here.”

***

Neverah walked away from their home, boots dragging heavily through the thick mud. Deeper into the valley, she approached the massive trunk of the great tree, stepping into the deep shadow of its canopy.

Ezra and Kira followed quietly behind. The wind howled softly over the dead earth.

As Neverah reached the roots, a deep rumble vibrated through the mud. The great tree was stirring.

The gnarled wood began to groan. The thick bark split down the center, pulling apart like opening hands. Inside, the hollow, cradled on a woven bed of living roots, was a newborn bathed in a pulsing, warm emerald glow.

The children ran to her as she dropped to her knees. Her breath left her in a sharp, stunned gasp. Trembling, she unfastened the tattered, faded blue shawl from around her shoulders. Reaching into the glowing hollow, she gently lifted the infant, wrapping the shawl securely around its small body.

Neverah delicately cradled the boy against her chest.

Kira’s eyes went wide. “It’s a baby. Where did it come from?”

Ezra, holding onto Kira’s waist, peeked around her. “Do you think someone left it here?”

“The great tree provided it,” Neverah said, her voice breaking with a mixture of awe and overwhelming understanding.

Kira shook her head, “Trees don’t give birth to babies. That’s impossible.”

“There are stories,” Neverah started, looking out beyond the valley. “In a time long ago, there was a family. The Adaeze family. They could do wondrous things. But—there are always those afraid of magic they don’t understand. Their bloodline was wiped out. Or so they say. Some believe the last Adaeze blessed this very spot with her magic. This baby is proof that magic still exists.”

As if responding to the name, the massive branches of the great tree above them shifted.

A single, dying leaf broke loose from the canopy, drifting downward, brittle and lifeless. As it fell past Neverah’s shoulder, the baby shifted. A tiny, perfect hand reached out, brushing against the falling, dead leaf.

Time seemed to stop.

The leaf fell to the ground. A pulse. A gust of wind. An emerald glow. The earth erupted in lush greens, oranges, yellows, and blues. Healing the rot instantly.

The magic surged outward, splintering the wooden fence. The brilliant green tide washed over the ruined, barren earth beyond, racing toward the horizon, healing centuries of decay.

House Adaeze had returned.

Connect

Follow us on socials

Contact

dlovellbooks@outlook.com

Email

© 2025. All rights reserved.

Store Policies

Privacy policy