Semua Bab Wildwood: The veins of the earth : Bab 21 - Bab 30

Drift stood at the edge of Salt-Wake Beach, staring out into the roiling waves. The ocean whispered beneath the storm, speaking in a voice far too old for a child of his age to understand. His bones felt heavy with a longing he couldn’t place—an ache deep in his chest that seemed to echo through his veins. The saltwater pulled at him, like a tether trying to reel him into its depths. He had been dreaming of the sea for weeks now—dreams of things far beneath the surface, of ancient shadows that shifted between the wreckage of sunken ships and the bones of forgotten gods. But these were no ordinary dreams. They were memories, fragments of lives not his own. Sometimes, Drift would wake up gasping, his fingers aching as if they had just clawed their way out of the deep. His skin would smell of brine, and his mouth would be dry, like he had swallowed the sea itself. He didn’t know why he felt this pull, but he knew it was only a matter of time before the waves would claim him—or, perhaps

The forest was whispering again. Clara moved quickly, ducking under low-hanging branches slick with mist and rain, the ancient tome strapped tightly to her chest beneath her cloak. Ashani followed closely behind, silent but watchful, his own expression drawn tight with worry. The sigils Clara had activated before leaving her study still glowed faintly beneath her sleeves—protection wards, old ones, older even than her grandmother’s teachings. But even they felt thin now, strained under the pressure of what approached. The wind howled through the trees like a voice just out of earshot—no words, just intent. A calling. The land was changing. She could feel it in her bones. “Salt-Wake is only a few miles now,” Ashani said quietly behind her, his eyes sweeping the horizon. “If the boy’s gone to the sea, we may already be too late.” Clara didn’t answer at first. She couldn’t. The realization clawing at the edges of her thoughts had grown impossible to ignore. Drift wasn’t just part of

Clara had seen death before. She had seen it behind the eyes of possessed men, in the curled hands of long-buried children, in the twisted aftermath of rituals gone wrong. But the sanctum beneath Salt-Wake… this was different. This wasn’t death. This was becoming. The descent had taken time—longer than expected. The deeper they went, the more the world above seemed to fall away, muffled by water and silence. Ashani moved just ahead of her, his blade drawn, though it pulsed weakly in the dark. Light was scarce. The runes on the stone walls flickered like dying stars, each pulse of light reminding her that they were trespassers in something ancient. And then they saw it. The door. Not made of wood or stone, but of salted bone, shaped like twin wings folding inward, and between them an open passage filled with shimmering, trembling air. The boundary wasn’t just visual—it was felt. Clara staggered slightly as they neared it, her pulse catching, her breath shaking. Ashani placed a h

The wind changed as Emily crossed into the Flesh Garden. There was no clear border, no signpost or rune-scarred stone. Only a subtle shift in the air—heavier, metallic, as though each breath had to be filtered through memory and bone. She stepped past the gnarled roots of the tree line, and the world seemed to hold its breath. The trees here were older. Not merely in years, but in function. Their trunks twisted like muscles frozen mid-spasm, their leaves shaped like veined hands. Bark curled in strange spiral patterns, as though something had tried to claw its way out from beneath the skin of the wood. And at the center, where the ground sank in a wide basin of red-tinged soil, stood the altar—not of stone, but of petrified flesh and root, braided together with ancestral bindings that shimmered faintly in the twilight. Emily had not been here since her mother died. It felt like walking into a wound that had never healed. ⸻ She approached slowly, every step stirring old memories

P Emily didn’t run. Running would’ve meant fear—and fear fed the wrong things. WildWood had changed again. Where once it was cruel and whispering, it was now watching—a vast, slow gaze that pressed against the back of her skull with every step. The trees leaned toward her, creaking ever so softly as she passed. Moss clung to her boots. The path beneath her shifted, guiding her toward and away from things she could not yet name. Her breath steamed in the dusk-light, though it wasn’t cold. She carried the memory of the Buried Heart like a second soul, and it was growing louder with each mile. They will not understand you. You are no longer what they are. You are the turning of the spiral now. She pressed her palm to a birch tree, and the bark opened. Not tore—opened. The tree bled clear sap, and she felt the warmth in her fingertips, as if the forest was trying to feed her, or take her in. “No,” she whispered, withdrawing. But it wasn’t revulsion she felt. It was… kinship. Wi