The paradise dimmed as Tree Mother hardened into a lifeless statue. The bark that had sparkled gold lost its glimmer and the spiraling furls of Light that ran up its limbs faded. Valeria fell to her knees and her fingers buried into the soft soil. Her mouth opened in a silent cry as golden motes drifted around her frame.

The wound at her shoulder sizzled as she cried, seeming to thrive off of her suffering as Dark tended to do.

Nile went to her, but he didn’t tell her to stop. The Dark could change her, if it hadn’t already, and he wasn’t trained on how to handle such a manifestation of suffering and pain.

Instead, he prayed that Ferdinand would make it in time as he eased his arms around the girl, drawing her into his chest as her body shook with uncontrollable sobs. To his surprise, she allowed the embrace, and curled into him and gripped at the torn edges of his robes that had been rendered by the Coterie’s Light blade. She cried until her emerald eyes rimmed with red and she wilted against his side as if she were one of the saffron blossoms that had lost the will to strain towards the sky.

Somehow, she slept, and he rested against the bark of the tree that was now going stiff and cold. Guilt stabbed at him, but he also knew that the tree had saved his life. Without the grove’s sacrifice, he would have died. And when he stroked a limp, midnight curl from the girl’s face, he knew that if he had died, she never would have gotten to live. Even if the feelings stirring in his chest were wrong and irrational, he knew that this girl was precious and a treasure to be protected. Even if he’d never known his purpose in life, he’d always wanted to help those trapped in the outlands. But it had been a desire with no face. He’d only felt the urge deep in his chest since he was a child how wrong it was that those outside of Leocivat suffered. Now, as he held a girl whose suffering was real and tangible, he knew he’d found what he’d been looking for all his life.

His conviction only solidified as the remnants of Tree Mother’s power wound through him. She held within her a prophecy, one that had been burned into her roots since the dawn of her Creation.

A child will come, broken and lost. Golden sap will suckle her into adulthood until a champion will come to unleash her full potential. This champion will bring about a new beginning, and an end to the childish grove that has served its purpose. May the darkness be banished and a new world restored. No sacrifice is too small for this great destiny.

Nile wasn’t sure what role he could play in this grand destiny prophesied by a tree. As he gazed down at the girl that threatened to break his emotional barriers he’d thought secure and secret, he hoped that he could live up to such a title as champion. This precious girl was so broken beyond his mending. His fingers bled with golden blood and the stuff glittered across her cheek as he caressed her face. He couldn’t hope to save her, not when his very lifeblood was barely contained. Ferdinand would have to do something. Nile prayed that his mentor would know what to do.

For once, Nile was grateful that it was Ferdinand who was coming for him. While his master had ripped him away from his mother, he’d also saved his family from the Obsidian Sea. They’d always had an estranged relationship, but he knew when things really mattered, Ferdinand would be the one to trust. Had it been any other member of the Coterie who would eventually burst through the foggy mist that enveloped this place, saving a strange girl would be the last thing on anyone’s mind.

This grove was on a deposit of Divine Material, one of the largest he’d ever seen, and even though Tree Mother had given the last of herself so that he might live, it wasn’t gone. Its power had been so overflowing that every speck of life in its surroundings had been amplified, enough to give a tree sentient thought and its sap restorative properties. Its power was still here, but dormant and resting in the ground beneath them that kept the air soft and warm. A member of the Coterie would only devise a way to keep it for himself.

As he stroked the girl’s hair, absently aware of the suffering beneath her skin, he closed his eyes and focused on her soul.

Hers wasn’t like any he’d ever touched. She wasn’t human, he realized when he grazed the icy depths of her sorrow that went deeper than human emotion ever could have gone. She was a creature of the skies, one who attracted the birds who sat sentinel all around them. Even if she didn’t have wings, they knew what she was.

She was an angel.