God’s Tree

The trees swallowed the light.

One moment they were beneath open sky—cold and gray, stretched over distant clouds—and the next, they stepped beneath the shadow of the Forsaken Forest, and everything changed.

The sun did not reach the floor here.

Even midday felt like dusk.

The air was thick with the scent of old bark, damp moss, and the quiet hum of a world that hadn't moved in centuries. It wasn't dead.

It was waiting.

Argolaith was the first to step beyond the moss-covered stone markers at the forest's edge. The carved warnings etched into their faces had long since worn away, overtaken by vines and decay.

He didn't look back.

Kaelred followed reluctantly, muttering under his breath as he adjusted the strap on his satchel. "Ten thousand miles of this. Might as well be walking through the bones of a dead god."

Malakar entered next, silent, his long cloak trailing over the forest floor. His violet eyes flicked toward every subtle movement—of leaves, of light, of breath.

Thae'Zirak brought up the rear in his smaller form, claws clicking softly against root and rock. He kept his wings tucked, his gaze scanning the trees overhead.

The forest had accepted them.

But it had not welcomed them.

They walked at a normal pace, their boots crunching softly over leaf litter and gnarled roots. The path was not marked—there were no roads in the Forsaken Forest. Only vague directions, strange symbols carved into ancient trees, and the whispers of those who had entered and never returned.

But Argolaith's footing was confident.

This forest, for all its age and power, was still familiar.

It had grown outside his cabin. It had been the wall at the edge of his childhood.

Now he walked into it not as a boy peering through frost-laced windows—but as a man carrying three drops of the world's oldest blood.

The forest felt that.

It watched him with interest.

As they walked deeper, the forest's nature changed.

The trees grew wider. Their roots broke through the earth in serpentine patterns, twisting like skeletal hands clutching at the air. The leaves were silver and blue, many of them covered in tiny veins that pulsed faintly with light.

Flowers bloomed in places they shouldn't—on rocks, on the undersides of branches, even out of the trunks of the trees themselves. Some glowed softly. Others flickered like candlelight. A few hummed low notes when touched by the wind.

Argolaith paused at one such plant, brushing his fingers across its petals.

"Glowvine," he murmured. "Athos wrote about it. Said it was thought extinct."

Kaelred peeked over his shoulder. "Great. Maybe it's poisonous."

"It is," Argolaith said without looking back. "If you chew the stem."

Kaelred slowly stepped away.

Malakar chuckled under his breath. "Keep your hands where I can see them, Kaelred."

"Trust me," Kaelred muttered. "I'm not chewing anything in this place."

By the time evening approached—though in the Forsaken Forest, it was difficult to tell—the group had traveled perhaps twenty miles into its depths.

There had been no threats. No beasts. No curses.

But the silence was heavy.

Every sound they made felt louder than it should be. Every snapped twig echoed too long. The trees stood like watchers, ancient and unmoving.

They made camp near the roots of a hollowed tree the size of a house. Argolaith lit a small fire using dried bloodpine bark and a matchstick struck against enchanted flint. The flames burned low but steady, casting a circle of orange light against the deep silver-blue gloom.

Kaelred leaned against a stone and pulled his cloak tighter. "So. How many days of this do you think before something tries to eat us?"

Argolaith stirred the fire. "If something does, we'll handle it."

Thae'Zirak laid nearby, his tail curled around him. "This forest does not test with teeth. It tests with time."

Malakar nodded. "Let us see how long we remain ourselves."

Argolaith didn't respond.

He just stared into the fire, eyes reflecting the flames—and beyond them, the roots of home waiting at the heart of the forest.

They had begun their march into the Forsaken Forest.

And the forest had just begun to notice.

By the third day inside the Forsaken Forest, the rhythm of travel had grown quiet—steady, but alert. No beasts had challenged them. No curses had stirred. But the air had grown thicker, and the light dimmer, until it seemed the trees themselves were pressing inward from every side.

It was just after midday, though the sky above was lost to the black canopy, when they stumbled upon it.

A crevice.

It split the forest floor like a wound—narrow at first, but widening as it descended into the earth. The edges were jagged and uneven, choked with moss and hanging roots that trembled faintly in the windless air. Faint vapors coiled from the gap, cold and pale, rising slowly like smoke from a dying fire.

Kaelred nearly walked past it, until Thae'Zirak halted mid-step and turned his head sharply.

"…That was not there a moment ago," the dragon hybrid muttered.

Argolaith stopped too. His boots crunched softly over leaves as he stepped toward the lip of the crevice, eyes narrowed.

"It's recent," he said. "Split clean through the stone."

Malakar's violet gaze flicked down into the dark. "No beast did this."

Kaelred folded his arms, already frowning. "So naturally, we're going to keep walking, right? Maybe avoid the obviously cursed death-hole in the ground?"

Argolaith crouched at the edge, his expression focused, almost calm. Then—

He sniffed the air.

"Magic," he muttered. "Strong. Old. And growing."

Kaelred raised a hand and gestured vaguely at the trees. "Yes, Argolaith. That describes literally everything in this forest. Trees, rocks, moss, probably even the birds."

Argolaith stood and unslung his satchel. "No. This is different. There's something below."

Without hesitation, he stepped closer and began examining the edges of the drop, testing the slope with his boots.

Kaelred's eyes widened. "No. No, no, don't you dare—"

Argolaith dropped over the edge and began sliding down.

The earth swallowed him quickly. The slope was steep, but not unmanageable—its walls covered in thick vines and mineral veins that shimmered faintly in the dark. Argolaith's hands moved with precision, boots finding purchase on every jut of stone and root.

Above, Kaelred's voice echoed.

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!"

Argolaith called back, unfazed, "If I don't come back in an hour, come get me."

"WHAT IF YOU DIE IN TEN MINUTES?!"

"Then wait fifty and come anyway!"

Kaelred turned to the others, exasperated. "You're letting him do this?!"

Malakar only watched the opening with unreadable calm. "He did not ask."

Thae'Zirak chuckled deeply. "He smelled something powerful. He trusts his instinct. So do I."

Kaelred threw up his hands. "Great. Fantastic. Love being the only sane one here."

Argolaith reached the bottom of the crevice in minutes. The air down here was cold—unnaturally so. The stone walls pulsed with old energy, thin cracks glowing faintly with violet light. Fungi lined the floor in curled ridges, glowing like dying embers, and the scent was stronger now:

Warm earth. Crushed petals. Magic made solid.

And then he saw them.

Growing from a smooth mound of stone were three plants—unlike anything he'd seen in any text or tome. Their stems were black but translucent, like obsidian turned to flesh. Their leaves shimmered with layered hues, constantly shifting between green, blue, and gold. At the top of each stalk bloomed a single flower with six petals, arranged like a star, and pulsing with visible strands of magical current.

Argolaith approached slowly. Carefully.

He crouched beside the first plant, not touching—just watching.

"Living conduits," he whispered. "These aren't just ingredients. They're raw, grown manifestations of spell essence."

He opened his satchel and began pulling out his tools—scalpel, shears, containment vials, each inscribed with stabilizing runes. His hands moved with the care of a surgeon, every motion deliberate.

Above him, faintly, he could still hear Kaelred's shouting.

"I SWEAR IF YOU DIE DOWN THERE, I'M GOING TO BRING YOU BACK JUST TO KILL YOU AGAIN—"

Argolaith smiled as he collected the first and second plant.

"I love you too, Kaelred," he muttered under his breath.

The third plant pulsed as Argolaith sliced its stem free.

His runed vial sealed with a quiet hiss, glowing gently as it trapped the volatile magic within.

Each of the three star-shaped blooms now rested inside carefully marked containers, humming with a kind of living pressure, like they wanted to leap free and root themselves again.

But just as he reached to place the final vial into his satchel—

The air shifted.

It wasn't wind.

It was breath.

The ground beneath him grew suddenly colder. The veins of violet light in the rock flared once, then dimmed.