Chapter 105: Sleeping Beauty Is... ?
Jason walked, and the roots parted like it was the red sea.
They did not retreat in fear or recoil in aggression. They simply moved aside, clearing a path that had not existed moments before. The green tendrils curled away from his feet, revealing stone that had been hidden for centuries. Branches that had blocked every other corridor arched upward like a cathedral ceiling, creating a tunnel that led deeper into the castle.
"It is leading me somewhere," Jason muttered to himself.
He did not know why, he did not know how. But the roots were not attacking him—they were guiding him. Every turn he made, they anticipated.
Every hesitation, they waited. The path ahead cleared only when he was ready to step forward.
He raised his hand and focused. The air shimmered. A thin, translucent barrier materialized around him, the same barrier he had taken from the watcher.
It clung to his skin like a second layer, invisible but absolute. If the roots changed their minds, if this was a trap, they would not be able to touch him.
The comfort was small, but it was enough.
The corridor narrowed. The impaled corpses disappeared, replaced by walls of pure root—woven so tightly that no stone remained visible. The air grew warmer and sweeter. A fragrance crept into his lungs, soft and floral, utterly out of place in this land of rot and decay.
Jason stepped into a room and stopped in shock.
The chamber was not like any place he had seen in the Marrow. It was not cold or dark or menacing, it was beautiful. The walls were covered in flowers—cascading vines of roses, lilies, orchids in colors he had never seen. The floor was soft moss, green and vibrant, springy beneath his boots. Light filtered from somewhere above, warm and golden, as if a sun existed here that did not shine anywhere else.
In the center of the room, on a bed of petals, a woman lay sleeping.
She was human.
Jason’s breath caught. Her skin was fair, unblemished, with a warmth that the elves lacked. Her hair spilled across the flowers in waves of deep chestnut, tangled with tiny blossoms that seemed to have grown there intentionally. Her face was peaceful, serene, untouched by the centuries of death that surrounded this place. She wore a simple white dress, thin and flowing, that draped over her curves like morning mist.
She was the most elegant and beautiful thing Jason had seen in this world.
He stumbled backward. His shoulder hit the wall of roots. The barrier flickered but held.
"T-That is impossible," he whispered.
A human. In a world where humans did not exist. Where he was the first, the only, the anomaly so why was he seeing this woman here?
Yet here she lay.
As if she had been expecting him all along.
And more importantly, how was she sleeping in such a place, Jason tried to wake her up but she never did, he checked for a pulse which she had.
"Is this Sleeping Beauty?" Jason thought to himself but kept his mouth shut shortly after.
-
Ylva tried to retreat to the outside.
Every instinct screamed at her to leave, to find the exit, to put distance between herself and this place of death and roots and impaled corpses. She had almost died here. She had felt the roots around her throat, around her arms, around her legs. She had felt her strength failing.
But there was no way in hell she was going to leave Jason.
Not after the crawl, not after watching him tear the arm off a creature that should have killed them all. She would not allow what happened before to happen again—the helplessness, the fear, the moment when she thought she would never see him breathe again.
But maybe she would think differently if Jason had told her the truth however he didn’t so she followed him.
From behind, close enough to track, far enough to stay out of sight. Her bare feet made no sound on the black stone, her breathing was shallow, controlled. Her body moved like water through the shadows, slipping between pillars, pressing against walls, disappearing behind corners before Jason could turn his head.
He could not see her. He could not hear her. He did not have her senses, her training, her centuries of instinct. To Jason, she was invisible.
Ylva watched the roots.
They parted for him. They cleared a path wherever he stepped, bending and curving like servants bowing to a king. They did not reach for him, nor did they tighten. They did not even seem to notice her presence as long as she stayed behind him unlike before when they moved to harm her.
But the moment Jason passed, the roots closed again—not fully, but enough to block her path. She had to slip through gaps, slide between tendrils, squeeze past branches that seemed to tolerate her rather than accept her.
"Why?" she asked herself. "Why do they obey him? Why do they not attack?"
She had no answer.
The corridor narrowed. The roots grew thicker. And then Jason stepped into a room—a chamber filled with light and flowers and warmth that should not exist in this place.
Ylva tried to follow.
The roots shot across the entrance.
Not violently or aggressively but deliberately. They wove together like fingers lacing, forming a barrier that she could not pass. She pushed against them. They held, she clawed at them, they did not bleed.
The tree was aware of her and it did not want her to enter this specific room.
Ylva pressed her ear against the roots and listened but all she heard was silence.
Complete, absolute silence. Not a whisper and not a single breath. Not the rustle of fabric or the crunch of footsteps. Whatever was happening inside that room, the roots would not let her hear it.
She crouched in the shadows, her claws extended, her green eyes fixed on the barrier.
"I will wait," she thought. "And the moment something goes wrong, I will tear this tree apart with my bare hands."
-
Mae remained quiet.
Not because she had nothing to say, but because she could not utter a single word, her throat was tight and her tongue dry. Every time she opened her mouth, the memory of those visions flooded back—a hundred deaths, a hundred ways to end, each one more vivid than the last. She was scared out of her mind.
But she instinctively knew that this creature did not mean to harm her.
If he had wanted her dead, she would be dead. The roots could have crushed her. The visions could have continued until her mind shattered. Instead, he had apologized. Instead, he had released her. He wanted something else—something she could not fathom—and Mae knew she could not agitate or irritate him.
So she waited until he told her what he truly wanted.
The ant king lay on the stone floor where the roots had dropped him. His tiny chest rose and fell, but the rhythm was wrong—too slow, too shallow. Mae had assumed he was in a deep slumber, but now she realized the truth.
"He is not sleeping," she thought. "He is hibernating."
His body had retreated into itself, conserving energy, shutting down non-essential functions. The healing he had performed on Ylva had cost him more than she had realized. He might not wake for days, maybe longer.
Mae looked at the creature fused to the roots.
His golden eyes were open, watching her with that same tired patience. His body was bound to the chair—if it could be called a chair. The roots wrapped around his limbs, his torso, his throat, holding him in place. He seemed trapped, unable to move, unable to rise.
But he did not need to move, the roots were his hands. The vines were his arms and the entire castle was his body. Trapped or not, he possessed more power than anything Mae had ever encountered.
She took a step forward.
Her hooves clicked against the stone. The sound echoed through the chamber, loud in the silence. She expected the roots to react, to grab her, to stop her.
They did not, the creature did not even blink.
Encouraged, Mae took another step. Then another. She was close enough now to see the texture of his skin—grey, cracked, like old bark. Close enough to see the faint glow of the apple behind him, pulsing in rhythm with his breath.
"Do you believe in gods?"
The question came without warning. His voice was soft, almost gentle, but it filled the chamber like thunder.
Mae froze. She had no idea what he was talking about. Gods? In this place of death and roots and impaled corpses? She kept quiet. Her lips pressed together as her hands trembled at her sides.
The creature did not seem offended by her silence.
"Gods," he continued, his golden eyes drifting toward the apple above him. "I once believed in them. In their power, wisdom, and justice."
He paused. The apple pulsed. The chamber hummed.
"That is..." he said, "... until I became one."
Mae’s brow furrowed. She did not understand anything he was talking about. He was just a creature—powerful, yes, ancient, yes—but a creature nonetheless. A being with access to powerful magic, bound to a chair, fused to roots. There was nothing special about him.
"He is not a god," she thought. "He is just powerful, but is there much difference between the two?"
But she did not say that aloud.
"There is one thing," the creature said, "that even I do not understand."
Mae’s heart pounded, her throat tightened.
"Do you know what that is?"
She hesitated. Answering felt dangerous and not answering felt worse.
"W-What is it?" she whispered.
The creature’s golden eyes fixed on her face. His lips parted but then nothing followed.
The silence stretched, Mae waited. The creature’s eyes grew heavy, drooping, closing. His head tilted forward. His chest rose and fell in a slow, deep breath.
He had fallen asleep, mid-conversation, like a candle being snuffed out.
Mae stared at him. Her mouth fell open.
"What the hell!?" she thought.
She stood alone in the chamber, the sleeping god before her, the ant king hibernating at her feet, the apple pulsing softly above. She had no answers or explanations neither did she know what to do next.
But the creature had not killed her.
And for now, that was enough but this weakened state was because Maldred was resisting, this meant there was an imbalance that did not just affect them but the entire Marrow as a whole.
-
Tauriel clutched her head and screamed in utter anguish.
The sound tore through the castle walls, raw and primal, a howl of agony that sent servants scattering and guards reaching for weapons. Her body convulsed on the marble floor, her hair splaying across the stone, her fingers digging into her scalp as if she could claw out whatever was eating her from the inside.
She had no idea what was happening.
But it felt like she was being flayed alive—her very essence ripped apart, shredded, consumed. The fragment of her soul that she had embedded in Thalion’s neck was no longer hers. Something was devouring it. No, it was torturing her.
The female elves rushed into the chamber.
They found Tauriel on her back, her eyes rolled to the back of her head, blood streaming from her tear ducts like crimson tears. Her mouth was open in a silent scream that vibrated through the walls, shaking the walls, cracking the stone.
"What is going on!?" one of the elves shouted.
Before anyone could answer, the temperature dropped.
The queen walked into the building.
Her silver hair cascaded down her back. Her white robes brushed the floor. Her pale eyes swept the room, taking in the kneeling elves, the trembling servants, and Tauriel’s writhing body.
"My queen!" the elves gasped, dropping to their knees.
The queen did not acknowledge them. She walked past the kneeling figures, her bare feet silent on the stone, and stopped beside Tauriel’s convulsing form.
She looked down at the woman who had ruled in her absence but it was clear she had done something had done something to put herself in this state.
The queen closed her eyes in resignation, there were spells that were risky even for their kind.
"You fool," she said quietly. "You used that spell, didn’t you?"
