Chapter 104: Mae In Danger! [FIXED!]
Jason heard the scream and his blood turned to ice, he knew this could only mean one thing. They had either found something or they were in danger.
He rounded the corner at a sprint, his boots skidding on the black stone, and found Ylva trapped in a cage of writhing roots. The green tendrils coiled around her arms and legs and throat, tightening with every breath she took, and more were already rising from the floor to join the assault. Her claws had drawn ichor from a dozen severed branches but for every one she cut two more took its place.
He looked past her and Mae was gone.
The corridor where she had been walking was empty except for the impaled corpses and the restless roots that slithered across the stone like snakes searching for prey.
Something had taken her, this much was clear, the disturbed dust on the ground and the snapped branches near the ceiling told him everything he needed to know.
Jason’s heart pounded, he had visions of what had happened a few hours ago, and if it was to happen again, he knew there was no way he would be able to save her.
The ant king was still slumbering on Mae’s back which meant they had no supernatural weapon to defend themselves with. They were on their own.
He grabbed the roots wrapped around Ylva’s arm and pulled.
They came away easily, too easily, as if they had been waiting for him to touch them. The roots that had been crushing Ylva’s throat loosened and fell limp. The tendrils around her legs uncoiled and dropped to the floor. Within seconds she was free, stumbling forward, her chest heaving.
Ylva stared at him with wide green eyes. "How did you do that?"
Jason didn’t have an answer. He looked down at his hands then at the roots which had retreated several feet away from him like dogs that had been scolded. They weren’t attacking him. They hadn’t attacked him once since they entered the castle. The impaled bodies lined the walls but the roots had never reached for him.
Jason couldn’t connect the dots but he wasn’t about to question it, if anything, this was an opportunity for them to get the hell out of here.
"Why aren’t they touching me?" he muttered.
Ylva grabbed his arm, her claws still extended, her body trembling. "Jason, we need to move. Mae is gone."
He looked over his shoulder at the empty corridor and the disturbed dust and the snapped branches near the ceiling. The realization hit him like a physical blow. Mae was gone. The roots had taken her while he was distracted and he had no idea where.
"We have to find her," he said.
Ylva nodded. "I’ll go with you."
"No." Jason turned back to her. "You’re still hurt. Your stomach—"
"It’s fine," Ylva tried her best to downplay it but Jason could see she was shaken. It was a near-death experience after all.
"It’s not fine." He grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to meet his eyes. "You had a hole in your stomach. The ant king stitched you back together but you’re not at full strength. If I lose you again—"
"You won’t."
"I can’t take that chance."
Ylva’s jaw tightened. Her ears flattened. "Jason, I am not staying here while you go after her alone."
"Mae is gone and the ant king is with her. If I don’t find them now they could be anywhere in this castle." He released her shoulders and stepped back. "I need you to stay here. Stay safe. Don’t let the roots take you again,."
"And if they do?"
Jason looked at the roots which were still dormant at his feet, still refusing to touch him. "I don’t think they will. Not while I’m close so get out of their range,"
Ylva stared at him for a long moment. He could see the fear in her eyes and the anger and something else that looked like resignation. She knew he was right even though she hated it.
Jason was doing the exact thing he had done during the crawl even though this situation was quite different.
"Find her," she said finally. "Find her and come back, I prepare!"
"I will."
"Jason." Her voice cracked. "P-Please come back,"
He almost smiled. "I don’t intend to die, who else is going to put a baby in you?"
He turned and ran toward the corridor where Mae had been taken, his boots pounding against the black stone, the roots parting before him like water. Behind him Ylva stood alone in the hallway her claws still extended with her green eyes fixed on his back until he disappeared around the corner.
The corridor branched into darkness. The impaled corpses watched him pass. And somewhere ahead Mae was waiting for him her body wrapped in roots her voice silenced by living wood.
Jason ran faster.
-
Mae expected pain and torture, she expected these vines to crush her bones and twist her limbs.
She expected the roots to tighten around her throat, to crush her ribs, to pierce her flesh and impale her on the walls like all the others. That was what roots did in this castle. That was what they had done to hundreds of corpses. She had seen the bodies and smelled the rot.
But the roots did not hurt her for some very strange reason.
They wrapped around her softly, almost gently, coiling around her arms and legs and waist like a mother’s embrace. The one around her mouth pressed against her lips but did not force them open. The ones around her throat sat loosely, allowing her to breathe. They were not tight enough to cause any damage, not even a bruise.
"It doesn’t want to kill me," Mae thought.
Her confusion grew with every passing second. The roots carried her through dark corridors, past impaled bodies, past walls slick with moisture. They moved with purpose, not hunger. They were taking her somewhere specific.
She stopped struggling. There was no point. She was not a fighter. She had never been a fighter. And whatever was controlling these roots could have killed her a dozen times already. Instead, they held her like a precious object being transported to a shrine.
The corridors grew wider. The impaled bodies grew fewer. The air grew warmer, and a faint golden light began to seep through the cracks in the stone.
And then she saw it.
The chamber at the heart of the castle.
It was not built, it was grown. Walls of twisted root and petrified wood formed a hollow sphere, lit by a single object at its center. An apple. Deep crimson, almost black, hanging from a branch that curved down from the ceiling. It pulsed with a slow, rhythmic glow, like a heartbeat.
Behind the apple, embedded in the wall of roots, was a figure.
A face. Only a face, barely visible among the roots that wrapped around it like living bandages. The body was indistinguishable from the wood around it, fused to the trunk, coated in layers of dust and ancient moss. But the eyes were clear.
They were the color of molten gold, slit-pupiled, and looked tired. They had watched empires rise and fall. They had sensed the watcher’s failure and had seen who did it but not only that.
This creature saw exactly how he did it.
And now, they looked right at Mae.
The roots lowered her to the ground. She landed on her hooves, unsteady, her breath coming in short gasps. The roots released her completely and retreated into the walls, leaving her alone in the chamber with the being.
She looked at him, dumbfounded and her breathing stopped.
Not because he did anything. He did not move, he did not speak, he did not even blink. But his eyes—those molten gold eyes—fixed on her face, and Mae felt something inside her shatter.
Visions flooded her mind almost instantly like it was speaking to her.
Not dreams or pleasant memories. She had rapid visions of her dying in so many ways, a hundred different ways to die, each one more horrific than the last. She saw herself impaled on a branch, her body twitching, blood pouring from her mouth. She saw herself crushed beneath a falling pillar, her bones snapping one by one. She saw herself drowned in a pool of black water, her lungs filling with rot. She saw herself burned, frozen, dismembered, devoured.
Each experience was vivid. Each experience was real. She felt the pain of every death—the searing heat, the crushing weight, the suffocating darkness. Her body convulsed. Her eyes rolled back. Blood dripped from her nose.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped.
Mae coughed. She gagged. She barely held onto her consciousness, her hands pressed against the stone floor, her chest heaving. She looked up at the being through blurred vision.
The being had closed his eyes.
"My apologies," he said.
His voice was soft, almost musical, but there was something beneath it—a weight, a pressure, like standing at the bottom of the ocean. "I forget how strong I am. My presence alone can be... overwhelming for lesser beings."
He opened his eyes again, but this time there was no flood of visions. The molten gold was calm, patient.
Mae’s throat was raw. Her body ached but she was alive.
She had no idea what he wanted. Whatever this creature was—it was one of the lords of the Marrow—he was on a whole different level from the watcher. From anything she had ever encountered. And yet, he had not killed her. The vines had carried her gently. He had apologized for hurting her.
He was almost... civil? Mae knew it was smart not to do anything that would provoke or agitate him.
The vines on the walls shifted, loosening further. Mae realized then that the vines’ actions were remotely controlled—they were not acting on their own. Every root that had carried her, every tendril that had wrapped around her, had been directed by this being. Which meant he had made an intentional effort not to take Jason.
"Why?" she wondered. "Why take me and not him?"
She pushed herself to her feet. Her legs were shaking, but she stood.
"W-What do you want?" she asked.
The creature did not speak because it had no reason to answer a lesser being.
He simply rested, his body fused to the roots, his golden eyes watching her with something that might have been curiosity. The apple pulsed like it was his heart as the chamber hummed. And Mae stood alone in the presence of something far older and far more dangerous than she had ever imagined.
He did not answer her question.
He did not need to.
