Chapter 65. When Roots Remember

The first sign was not a scream. It was a song.

Not one any Ashlight child had ever sung, nor any tongue wrought in Kin memory. It hovered at the edge of hearing, like wind through hollow bone—part birdsong, part breath—yet every note felt skewed, as if the forest itself had begun to hum a mournful tune. Each lingering pitch raised the hairs on Corren’s neck, not with fear, but with something older, deeper. The melody rode on the southern wind, carrying no scent of earth or frost, no warmth of sun or bite of chill. It carried memory.

He first caught it in the outer fields, sunlight barely brushing the hills in pale rose. A half-made hoe rested against his thigh; seed-root lay cool in his other hand. The goats slept in low pens, their breaths slow and even. All around, the trees stood unnaturally still—no twitter of sparrow, no hum of insect—only the distant pulse of roots slumbering beneath the soil and that low, curling hum winding through the dawn like smoke from a fir