The training area was a little way beyond the Heartroot, close enough that its glow reached the makeshift ring they’d trampled into the ground, far enough that overenthusiastic spear swings didn’t threaten anyone. When James arrived, Rogan was already there, spear in hand, correcting Maude’s footwork with patient nudges of his own boot against hers. A couple of other warriors ran through drills nearby, wooden practice blades thudding against each other in steady rhythms.

  Kerrin stood at the edge of the ring, watching Rogan with that intense attention he reserved for things he both respected and envied. His spear rested butt-down by his side, arms loose, but the set of his jaw was tight. He had always been dependable, solid, the kind of young man people naturally turned to when something needed doing, but there was still a gap between that and leading inside a place that wanted to eat you.

  James walked straight to him.

  “Kerrin,” he said.

  Kerrin straightened as if someone had yanked a string attached to his spine. “Chieftain,” he said. “Do you need me for patrol? I thought I was on the second watch today, but if...”

  James shook his head. “Not patrol,” he said. “I want you to lead the next tunnel team.”

  For a heartbeat Kerrin froze, every muscle going rigid. The color drained from his face so fast James worried he might have broken him. The young man’s eyes flicked instinctively to Rogan, searching for some combination of objection and rescue.

  Rogan, who had obviously been following the conversation even while Maude tried to remember which leg to plant, met his gaze and nodded once. “You can do it,” he said. There was no fanfare in his tone, no caution. Just simple, steady certainty.

  Kerrin’s throat worked. James could almost see the thoughts crossing his face in sequence: I’m not ready, if Rogan says I can maybe I am, if I say no what does that make me, if I say yes what if people die. The young man took a slow breath, shoulders rising and then settling in a way that looked a lot like a decision being made.

  “Then I’ll do it,” he said. His voice came out rough, but it did not shake. “If you’re sure, Chieftain.”

  “I’m sure,” James said. He let himself smile a little, not too wide, not too relieved. “Your job will be harder than Rogan’s, though.”

  Kerrin blinked. “Harder?”

  “Rogan got to go first,” James said. “He got to take the reckless ones and test things, come back to tell me what nearly killed him. You get to take a team into tunnels that are now officially ‘known dangerous,’ with the knowledge that we can’t afford to lose anyone and that people will start calling you fearless whether you feel that way or not.” He spread his hands. “No pressure.”

  A laugh escaped someone nearby, quickly smothered. Kerrin managed a weak huff of amusement of his own. “That sounds… terrible,” he said. “But also… right.”

  “Good,” James said. He turned away from Kerrin then and raised his voice. “Wicksnap!”

  The druid was leaning against his staff under a nearby tree, eyes closed, beard tangled into impressive knots. He had perfected the art of sleeping upright while looking like he was listening to the wind. At James’s shout, he jolted so hard his staff actually slipped. He made a strangled snorting noise that would haunt James’s memory for months.

  “I was listening,” Wicksnap protested at once, blinking wildly. “The leaves were telling me about moisture content. Very important. Very... why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Because,” James said, delighted in a slightly cruel way, “you’ll be accompanying Kerrin into the tunnels. It’s time you gained some levels.”

  The silence that followed was exquisite. Wicksnap’s jaw dropped. His hand tightened on his staff as if considering whether he could actually use it as a literal crutch to hobble away. Somewhere behind James, Maude choked on an unhelpful laugh.

  “The spirits don’t like tunnels,” Wicksnap blurted. “They’re made of… of rock, and old air, and gnawer droppings. There is no proper sky. My bones are allergic to stone. The shadows whisper unkind things. I am very sensitive to whispering rocks, Chieftain, I don’t think...”

  James stepped in before the cascade of excuses turned into an epic poem. “The spirits will survive,” he said dryly. “Your bones will survive. The shadows can file a complaint. You have been standing at the edge of danger waving feathers and muttering, which is valuable, but we need you to actually see what we’re fighting up close.” He raised his hand and, ignoring Wicksnap’s widening eyes, laid it firmly on the druid’s shoulder. “Blessing granted.”

  Warmth surged up his arm, softer than when he blessed warriors, carrying the faint smell of damp leaves and smoke. It sank into Wicksnap with a shiver that rippled visibly through him. The older man’s eyes went unfocused, mouth dropping open as the invisible text of a system notification unfolded in front of him.

  Around them, conversation halted. Even Rogan paused mid-correction. Maude stared, staff halfway through a swing. Kerrin looked somewhere between horrified and fascinated, as if watching someone shove a cat into a bath.

  When Wicksnap finally blinked back to the present, his beard seemed to have puffed out with affront. “Did you just...”

  “Yes,” James said. “You are now officially blessed. I expect an amazing class out of you. Something useful. Scholar of Herb-Smoke, Spirit Cartographer, Voice of Vines. Surprise me.”

  “You can’t just...”

  “And,” James continued inexorably, “you will put all your level points into Intelligence.”

  There was a beat of stunned silence, and then someone snorted. Wicksnap clutched his staff like a drowning man. “All?” he croaked. “But… but what about Willpower? And… and my rugged outdoorsman charm?”

  “Your rugged outdoorsman charm will cope,” James said. “We need someone whose brain lights up when they look at strange things. You already see and hear things the rest of us don’t. Lean into it. Let the others hold the line. Your job is to notice, understand, and remember, then come back and tell me what the tunnels are actually like rather than just ‘dark and rude.’”

  Wicksnap opened his mouth, shut it again, and finally let out a low groan. “The stones are laughing at me,” he muttered. “I can hear them. ‘Oh look, Wicksnap, underground at last, how we’ve missed your feet.’”

  “Good,” James said cheerfully. “Tell them I said hello. You leave in a few minutes.”

  As the group began to form more solidly around Kerrin, James moved through them, laying out the rest of the roster. “Kerrin leads,” he said. “Wicksnap goes as… call it a research druid. Irla for healing. Trell for carrying things and hitting them very hard when necessary. Alder…” he glanced toward the workshop, where the boy had already vanished inside on a mission of shelves, “will join you another time, when you’re not immediately walking into the worst parts. I want him to see how the tunnels feel, but I’m not throwing him into a nest of beetles without warning.”

  “Finni,” Kerrin said quietly. “What about him?”

  James hesitated, then nodded toward the edge of the clearing where the pasture lay. “I’ll talk to him,” he said. “If the forest agrees, he goes with you. I want to see what that kid has become.”

  They broke up then, each to their own preparations. James cut across the clearing toward the small fenced-off patch that qualified as their pasture, where the aether fawns cropped at low grass with their usual serene air of being slightly apart from reality. Finni stood among them, barefoot as always, fingers combing gently through the thicker fur between one fawn’s ears. The creature leaned into the touch like a big cat, eyes half-lidded.

  “Your brother not glowering nearby for once?” James asked, coming to lean against the fence.

  Finni did not startle. He rarely did. He turned his head slightly, watching James with eyes that had gone from simple brown to something a little more like moss over deep water. “He left early,” Finni said. “He went to look for his mount. He heard a call last night. Or so he claims...” His voice was calm, but there was a tiny line between his brows.

  James grimaced internally. He had wanted both twins in the tunnels, their strange, complementary magic and movement a kind of safety net. But forcing them together when they were this raw with each other seemed like an excellent way to turn a tight corridor into a screaming match.

  “Did the forest say anything about that?” James asked. “About him going off alone?”

  Finni tilted his head, listening in that eerie way of his. “It said he is stubborn,” he said at last. “And that sometimes you have to let a root search for water on its own. It is watching.”

  “That’s… not as comforting as I’d like,” James said. He blew out a breath. “I wanted you both down there. But maybe this way is better. Less… tension in cramped spaces.”

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  Finni’s mouth quirked. “We would not fight where the stone could fall on us,” he said. “Probably.”

  “Your ‘probably’ does not inspire confidence,” James said. He sobered. “Kerrin’s leading a team into the tunnels soon. I want you with them. No weapons, just you and whatever the forest lends. Can you do that?”

  Finni looked back at the fawns, his hand never stopping its gentle stroke through fur. “The tunnels are not the forest,” he said slowly. “They are… like the bones of something that died a long time ago. But the roots go there. The wall between soil and stone is thin in places. I can listen. I can touch. I can tell them when the earth is thinking about moving.”

  “That’s exactly what I need,” James said. “Rogan says you have a good sense for where things might come from. Down there, that could make the difference between being ambushed and ambushing.”

  Finni considered this for a long breath. Then he nodded. “I will go,” he said. “The fawns will stay. They do not like the taste of rock in the air.”

  James smiled. “I don’t either,” he admitted. “Welcome to the team.”

  He left Finni with the fawns and went in search of Trell, who, despite his earlier enthusiasm for roofs, had a talent for vanishing when he suspected someone might want him to do something scary.

  He found the big man near the woodpile, dutifully stacking logs with the air of someone desperately hoping virtue would make him invisible. James walked up beside him and held out the object he’d had tucked under his arm.

  Trell glanced down, saw the hammer, and frowned. “That’s the ugly one,” he said. “Varn’s first.”

  “Yes,” James said. The hammer was as unattractive as ever: head slightly too bulky, balance off just enough to tug at the wrist, handle bearing the small scorch mark from where Varn had cursed and grabbed it too early out of the fire. “It’s also the first tool he made under our tree. The one that got us here.”

  Trell reached out automatically, fingers closing around the handle. His expression softened a little. “Feels… heavy,” he said. “Not just in the arm.”

  “That’s because it is,” James said. “And I want you to take it with you into the tunnels.”

  Trell’s head snapped up. “What? No. No, no, you said I’d be helping with roofs. I am very good at roofs. Tunnels are… the opposite of roofs.”

  “I did say that,” James said. “And you will be doing more roofs. Later. But right now, I need someone strong down there. Someone who can carry, who can brace, who can put their back against a falling beam and hold it for those extra seconds that matter. You’ve done that for us up here. I need you to do it down there too.”

  Trell’s grip on the hammer tightened. “I’m not a fighter,” he said. His voice was low and rough, stripped of his usual joking tone. “I swing hammers at beams. I don’t... There are teeth and claws in those tunnels, James. I saw the gnawers’ corpses. They don’t care if my balance is good.”

  “I know,” James said softly. “I’m not asking you to stand in front like Rogan. Irla will be there. Kerrin will be there. Finni will tell you if the ceiling wants to kill you. Your job is to be the one the others can lean on when things shift. And to get experience. We all need levels, Trell. Unfortunately, killing monsters is the fastest way this world offers us to not die when more monsters show up.”

  Trell stared at the hammer, jaw clenched so hard a muscle ticked in his cheek. James let the silence stretch, not rushing it. This wasn’t a decision you pushed someone into with a joke.

  “Who knows what you’ll come back with,” James added quietly. “You’ve been building for us since the first day. The system has to be paying attention. Maybe there’s a class out there that looks at you swinging a hammer and thinks, ‘Yes, that one.’ But it won’t find you if you never step into a place it recognizes as a challenge.”

  Trell’s shoulders slumped, then straightened again in the same breath. He looked up, and the fear was still there, but it had something else braided through it now. “You really think I can do this?” he asked.

  “I do,” James said. “And if I’m wrong, Irla will punch me. Trust her, if not me.”

  A breath that could have been a laugh, could have been a sob, escaped Trell. He nodded once, sharp. “Alright,” he said. “I’ll go. But if I die, I’m haunting you.”

  “If you die, I’m going to be too dead from Marla’s wrath to notice your haunting,” James said. “So let’s avoid that.”

  They shared a brief, grim smile, then Trell shifted the hammer in his grip, finding the balance in a way that already looked more natural. It was as if somewhere in his muscles, the motion had been waiting.

  With the team forming and schedules slotting into new shapes, there was a moment where the village felt… between breaths. People were moving, planning, training, but there was a lull in crises, a thin slice of time where nothing was actively on fire. It felt unfamiliar. James found himself drifting toward the one constant that had not stopped changing since it became part of the village.

  The Heartroot seemed taller every time he looked. In the days since they had planted the seed, its trunk had thickened, bark smoothing into something magical, dry wood and more like living muscle. The branches had spread wider, leaves layering into a denser canopy. Now, standing directly beneath it, James had to tilt his head back to see the highest leaves, which shivered in some breeze that didn’t quite reach his skin.

  Mana motes floated more thickly here, tiny points of light drifting lazily in the air like dust in sunlight. Mana butterflies fluttered their wings around James’s head. Where the tree’s roots curled into the soil, the earth was darker and richer, damp even when other parts of the clearing were dry.

  James reached out and laid a hand against the trunk. The bark was cool to the touch, but not dead. There was a sense of slow, immense movement under his palm, like the faint vibration of a distant waterfall.

  “Alright,” he murmured. “Let’s see what you’re up to.”

  He closed his eyes and let Mana Resonance rise. The ability unfurled from his core not as a blast or a beam but as a spreading awareness, his own mana reaching out like a network of feelers into the ambient energy around him. When that mist of sense touched the Heartroot, it sank in as if through open doors.

  The tree’s presence washed over him, vast and gentle. It was nothing like the sharp, clear alignment of a blueprint or the bright focus of a blessing. It was older, deeper, all slow cycles and patient hunger for light. For a moment it was overwhelming, a flood of impressions, soil composition, moisture, the faint itch of bugs crawling on bark, the taste of sunlight on leaves. He let most of it slide past, focusing on what felt different from last time.

  There. Underneath the surface chatter, something pulsed.

  Once. Twice. A steady, deep beat, not like a heart exactly, but akin. With each pulse, the aura around the Heartroot swelled outward a fraction, brushing the edges of the clearing where it hadn’t quite reached before. James could feel the line where the tree’s influence tapered off, and it was several paces further now than it had been when he first tested it. The mana density in that radius was thicker, almost syrupy compared to the thin air beyond.

  He opened his eyes slowly. The world looked exactly the same. Children ran between the longhouses. Smoke curled gently from cook fire. But the knowledge sat in his chest like a stone with a small flame at its center.

  “You’re growing fast,” he murmured. “Is that because of us, or were you always going to do that?”

  The Heartroot did not reply, obviously. But a stray mote of light drifted down and settled briefly on the back of his hand before dissolving, and he chose to take that as a sort of answer.

  He stood there for a while, just breathing, letting that strange calm the tree radiated sink into his own ragged edges. If he listened hard enough, he could almost hear the Heartroot’s slow insistence pushing back against the fear that had taken up residence near his ribs: grow, it seemed to say. Not just up. Out. Around. Within.

  When the spell of that moment finally loosened, the sounds of village life filled in again.

  Nearby, Mira and Harlon were locked in what appeared to be a very serious debate over leather. They had commandeered a flat rock as an impromptu worktable until the workshop was ready for use, scraps of hide spread out like a brown sea. Mira held up a rough apron shape, eyebrows drawn together.

  “You can’t make it that narrow,” Harlon was saying. His normally mild face was unusually animated. “If the forge spits, it’ll hit the sides. It should wrap all the way around. And this part...” he jabbed at a strap “... is too thin. It’ll snap.”

  “It is supposed to be thin,” Mira retorted. “He needs to move his arms. If I make it like a coat, he’ll faint in the heat. And I like the tassels.”

  Harlon stared at the fringe she’d cut along the bottom. “Tassels,” he repeated, deadpan.

  “They add character,” Mira said. “And if they catch fire, we’ll know the apron is doing its job.”

  “You cannot put tassels on a smithing apron,” Harlon said, scandalized. “The sparks will get caught. They’ll… dangle with purpose and then set everything on fire.”

  “Everything is going to be on fire anyway, that’s the point of a forge,” Mira shot back. “Besides, maybe the spirits like tassels.”

  James shook his head, biting back a laugh. It was ridiculous. It was also exactly the sort of argument that meant people had enough space in their lives again to care about details like tassels on aprons.

  Further across the clearing, a small knot of children had claimed a section of packed earth as their battlefield. Two older ones clacked sticks together, mimicking Rogan’s spear drills with surprising accuracy. A younger boy with hair sticking up in every direction charged forward, brandishing his own stick like a sword.

  “I’m Inna!” he shouted. “Forward Surge!”

  He did not surge so much as flail, almost tripping over his own feet before recovering and managing to tap his opponent’s hip. The other boy staggered dramatically, clutching his side and groaning, then spun in place and fell to the ground.

  “Like the gnawer!” the prone boy gasped. “You cracked it and it spun, remember?”

  A little girl standing nearby swung her stick in a circle over her head. “I’m Maude,” she declared. “I hit it so hard it made a funny noise and Bren laughed.”

  They dissolved into giggles, collapsing into a messy heap of limbs and pretend death. One of them rolled too far and bumped into Trell’s legs as he passed, prompting an exaggerated yelp.

  “Careful,” Trell said, stepping over them. “If you break my knees, your Chieftain will make me hammer rocks forever.”

  “We’re practicing,” the Inna-pretender said, squinting up at him. “So we can go into the tunnels too.”

  James’s heart squeezed. It wasn’t that he didn’t want them strong. He wanted nothing more than for these children to grow up in a world where they could stand their ground if they had to. But the fact that their heroes now were not mythic figures from old tales, but Maude with her wild swings and Inna with her fierce grin, made something in him ache.

  He wondered, not for the first time, what stories they would tell about these days in ten years. In twenty. Whether he would still be here to hear them. Whether the Heartroot would be taller than all of them and the workshop old enough to have its own creaks and ghosts.

  Lumen drifted closer, brushing against his shoulder. “You’re doing the thing again,” it said quietly. “The far-away stare with extra guilt.”

  “I’m thinking about how we’re accidentally making legends,” James said. He watched as the Maude-child popped back up, dust in her hair, and whacked the Inna-child on the shins. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a terrible one.”

  “Both,” Lumen said. “Like most important things.” It hovered in front of him, bobbing gently. “They’re playing at being strong because they saw someone real survive. That’s better than playing at being invincible because a story said so.”

  “That might be the wisest thing you’ve said all week,” James murmured.

  “I have layers,” Lumen said primly, then bumped his forehead lightly. “Try not to get lost in ten years from now. You still have to get us through lunch.”

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