At first I think it’s me—my eyes going bad. But then I realize it’s a warp in the air. You can see it only when the golden flower-light hits it just so—a shimmering, rainbow-esque outline of something. Something huge, something looming gargantuan over the ruins, over us, spreading far and wide with many sturdy limbs and without a single thrown shadow. It gives off a faint rainbow light in a pattern like veins, pulsing gently in time to some unseen heartbeat, to some unseen music. To an unseen song.

The song. The one in my head, the one in my heart. The one in Evlorasin’s head, Evlorasin’s heart.

Our song.

“The Tree,” Lucien breathes.

“Spirits.” Lysulli’s ruby eyes bug out. “It’s…it’s real.”

“Shit,” Malachite manages to grit out. “It’s huge.”

“Like nothing I’ve ever seen,” Fione agrees in awe.

“They say it began here.” Yorl’s green eyes shine with the Tree’s light as he takes it in, tail swishing madly. “Life. They say the Tree of Souls was the first thing to ever grow on Arathess.”

I look up with an awed sigh at the shimmering veins—no, they’re branches. Branches bigger than entire rivers latticing the darkness above us. “And I godsdamn believe it.”

Lysulli gets over their awe first, and immediately begins shouting orders, the clamor of the battalions splitting to their positions drowning out the ethereal peace, their bone armor thundering over the stone ruins as they take their places.

“Prince!” Lysulli shouts, standing in front of a swathe of waiting archers. “Can I trust your terrible human eyesight to oversee the ambush placement?”

They motion to the archers and Malachite bristles, but Lucien starts.

“Yes! One moment!” He throws a smile at me. “I’ll be back.”

“Far too soon,” I tease. He gives me a last squeeze of my hand, then jogs over to the archers. I watch them clamber nimbly together over the debris of the ruins for a moment and then disappear up a cliff face.

“We should position ourselves near the First Root,” Yorl advises, wading through the ruins as the matronic trudges behind him, displacing rocks and rubble with its huge bulk. “So that when Varia approaches within terminal range, we can act.”

“Lucien can act, you mean,” Malachite says.

“Same thing.” I wave his grumpy arse off and turn to the celeon. “Lead the way, Master Polymath.”

“Not a master yet,” Yorl corrects. “An adjutant.”

I laugh and step around a boulder. “You mistake me for someone who gives a shit about any titles ever, darling.”

“I thought you’re engaged.” Fione sniffs. “Shouldn’t you be calling fewer people ‘darling’ now?”

Dead silence. The matronic hisses a little. Malachite makes a sputtering noise behind me.

Oops.

“E-Engaged? SINCE WHEN?”

“Keep your voice down!” Yorl hisses at Mal. “Lest you start a rockslide!”