Dax slows beneath the great tree, his paws sinking into moss that glows faintly with each step. The roots part for them, opening corridors of living wood and light.

  Sun dismounts unsteadily, her breath still stolen by the ride, by the scale of everything.

  Sanguineus leads Sun deeper, past chambers grown from bark and bone, until they reach the heart of the tree—an open hollow where light filters down in green shafts, dust motes drifting like spores.

  Sanguineus rests her staff against the floor.

  “You felt it already,” she says. “Didn’t you?”

  Sun nods. “The recognition. Like… like finding a scar that matches your own.”

  Sanguineus exhales, long and heavy, and for the first time her smile fades.

  “I am Sanguineus,” she says. “Fragment of Verdancy. Keeper of Continuance. Sister to the Blessing that Walks.”

  She turns, lifting her arm. The spiraled markings along her skin move, unfurling like vines awakened from sleep. Green light bleeds from them, not radiant like Sun’s gold, but deep and fertile—life thick and stubborn.

  “fragment was never meant to rule,” Sanguineus continues. “Nor to lead. were made to stay and help.”

  The air shifts.

  Around them, the walls come alive—visions blooming across the bark. Sanguineus sharing history

  Sun sees it.

  An age before ruin.

  women walking openly among cities of stone and glass. Crops bending heavy with abundance. Rivers running clear. Guardians—some beautiful, some terrible—standing watch.

  Then fear.

  Whispers.

  Priests rewriting scripture.

  Kings branding truth as heresy.

  “They learned to fear what they could not own,” Sanguineus says softly. “So they renamed us.”

  The visions darken.

  Fragments hunted.

  Temples burned.

  Guardians slain and twisted.

  “I stayed,” Sanguineus says. “When my sisters fled or fell. I rooted myself into the land and became myth, then monster, then nothing at all.”

  Sun’s throat tightens. “Why didn’t they find you?”

  Sanguineus smiles again—this time sharp.

  “Oh, they did……..Many times.”

  She taps her staff. The ground trembles faintly.

  “I let their armies starve. Their spells rot. Their faith choke itself on roots. Eventually they learned this place eats conquerors.”

  Sun looks down at her hands, golden light flickering faintly.

  “They call me Mother of Ruin.” Sun muttered

  Sanguineus laughs—low, bitter, old.

  “They called all of us ruin, eventually. Easier than admitting we were meant to save them.”

  She steps closer, green eyes piercing.

  “You are different from me,” she says. “Your fragment awakens cyclically. You are reborn, again and again, each century softer, more human… easier to kill.”

  Sun flinches.

  “They killed you before,” Sanguineus says gently. “Many times. That voice in your head? That was memory trying to survive.”

  Sun’s breath shudders. “My children—Rose, Sage, Thorne—”

  “Are echoes,” Sanguineus says. “Splinters of your divinity given form, from each life you lived.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Her jaw tightens.

  “And now they are taken.”

  The tree groans, leaves shivering in fury.

  Sanguineus turns toward the living throne and kneels—not in worship, but solidarity.

  “I did not save them,” she admits. “Because I did not know in time.”

  Sun’s eyes burn.

  “But I will help you get them back,” Sanguineus says, rising. “Because if they are experimenting on fragments—on echoes—then the old war has already begun again I have lived long enough to know.”

  She places her palm over Sun’s heart.

  Green and gold light flare where they touch.

  “Listen to me, Sun” Sanguineus says, voice fierce and steady.

  “You are not ruin.”

  Sun feels it then—truth settling into bone.

  “You are reckoning.”

  The living throne exhales as Sanguineus settles into it, roots and vines bending and coiling beneath her . Shifting with almost imperceptible care to cradle her weight, the gentle creak of fibered wood blending with the hum of unseen energy.

  Dax pads forward, massive and deliberate, the ground trembling beneath each step. He lowers himself at her feet, curling into a surprising crescent of shadowed muscle, tail flicking once in contentment. Even the ambient light seems to lean toward him, brushing across his horns and glinting along the scars etched into his skull. The contrast between his sheer bulk and the softness of his motions is striking—he is terrifying and gentle in the same heartbeat.

  Sun watches—first him, then the roots stretching toward the ceiling, pulsing with an almost sentient rhythm, then Sanguineus herself. Her mind reels, trying to fit together the pieces of what she’s seen, what she’s felt, what she barely understands.

  “The Bloodroot…” Sun says slowly, voice trembling with awe. “It’s mine, isn’t it?”

  Sanguineus inclines her head, green eyes luminous in the soft light. “Your sentinel…… you met mine, Bound to your essence, your command. It protects you because it serves you hence it’s sole purpose —.”

  Sun swallows. Her throat tightens. “And the children?”

  Sanguineus’s gaze softens, but the weight behind it is heavy. “Not spirits. Not demons. Fragments of you. Echoes of your multiple awakenings. Pieces of your essence shaped into voices, so you wouldn’t wake alone. So that even in solitude, you could remember yourself.”

  Sun’s hands tremble. “They are… me.”

  “Yes,” Sanguineus says gently, voice carrying authority and warmth in equal measure. “And that is why their capture wounds you so deeply.”

  Sun’s gaze drifts to Dax, sprawled comfortably on the glowing forest floor, sunlight—or some strange, internal illumination—painting the ridges of his hide with gold. “And him?” she asks, voice smaller now, hesitant.

  Sanguineus snorts, a sound that rumbles through roots and bark like distant thunder. “Dax is mine. Guardian….Executioner……Pillow.” She pats his massive head, fingers sliding along a scarred ridge as he rumbles with contented acknowledgment. “He looks terrifying because he must. But he’s just… a very large, very affectionate baby.”

  Dax rumbles again, a soft vibration that shakes the floor slightly, and Sun can’t help but laugh—a sound she hasn’t made in years, rich and fragile, breaking through the tension in her chest. “Do I have a guardian?”

  “if it hasn’t found you, it’s possibly dead” Sanguineus said looking away

  Sun gaze drifts back to the throne, to the living walls, to the immense veins of root curling and pulsing like arteries. “This tree… this place.”

  “My temple,” Sanguineus says simply, voice steady. “Grown, not built this tree is older than myself she holds all the forgotten tales all nature thrives off life she’s a long forgotten sister as well. I rule here—not as a queen, but as steward. I listen. I keep balance.”

  Sun hesitates. The words taste foreign, heavy. Finally, the question she’s been circling comes unbidden. “Are you… a mother too?”

  Sanguineus bursts out laughing, the sound ringing through the hollow like wind scattering birds. “Oh no,” she says, waving a hand with practiced ease. “Not in the way you mean.”

  She rises, staff tapping once against the living floor. Power stirs with every movement. “Each fragment is different,” she explains, letting her voice carry like a wind through branches. “Each carries a piece of the whole. Fire, water, air, knowledge….. —they are not gifts to be commanded, but pieces of balance to be nurtured.”

  She gestures, and fire flickers briefly between her fingers—then vanishes. A ripple of water coils around her wrist, dripping away like liquid crystal. The air hums, thickening, spinning softly. Snap of her fingers, and petals explode into the chamber—green, gold, white—whirling, spinning, unfurling along vines, wrapping gently around Dax’s paws. Flowers bloom without fear, petals brushing claws without damage.

  “Nature,” Sanguineus says, pride threading her voice. “Life that refuses to die. Animals that follow instinct. Plants that heal, protect, endure.”

  The petals fade into starlight for a heartbeat. “Cosmic.”

  Then she points at Sun. “And Life.”

  Sun’s breath catches, her chest rising and falling too quickly. She feels the pulse of it, the acknowledgment from every leaf, root, and glimmering petal.

  “I am not Mother,” Sanguineus says, returning to the throne, settling with a crooked smile that hints at mischief. “But I suppose you could call me… Mother Nature.” She chuckles softly, a sound like wind through branches, light and teasing.

  “I care for the earth,” she continues, voice tightening with gravity. “You bring life into it. That is why you have children. That is why the Bloodroot bends for you.”

  Her expression darkens slightly, almost wry. “But remember this: life and death walk together. Always. Do not cling to one while forgetting the other.”

  Sun nods, absorbing the weight of it. The tree beneath them pulses faintly, resonant with the rhythm of living memory.

  “How long…” she asks quietly, voice fragile. “How long have you been here?”

  Sanguineus’s smile fades, green eyes darkening like the deep heart of a forest. “Four hundred years,” she says softly, “caring. Fostering. Protecting. Searching for our kind. Always searching. And rarely finding them alive.”

  Images flicker in the living walls: sisters dragged through streets, bound in iron, burned while crowds cheered. Smoke rises in the painted air, screams embedded into the fibers of the root. Their guardians slaughtered, captured even fighting till death

  “Butchered,” Sanguineus says, her voice cold, slicing through the chamber.

  “Burned alive.”

  “Hunted.”

  Dax growls low, the vibration in his chest shaking the floor.

  “Humans hate what they do not understand,” Sanguineus finishes, gaze sharpening on Sun’s fragile, mortal form. “And your vessel is weak. It will not survive what’s coming—not unless you do something about it.”

  The tree pulses once, heavy, ominous, almost warning.

  Outside, stone and steel stand guard. Inside, truth sharpens into a blade.

  Sun swallows. Her hands curl at her sides. Her heartbeat thrums in her ears. Time stretches thin. Every second is a thread that might snap.