The ward shimmered blue-white around the courtyard, its light trembling like it couldn't decide whether to hold or collapse. Zoya's chalk lines pulsed faintly, and each pulse sent a ripple through the carved stone — like the ground itself had inhaled sharply at Manraj's confession.
Zoya stood completely still.
Manraj wasn't sure she was even breathing.
"Zoya," he whispered. "Say something."
She didn't.
Her eyes flicked over his face like she was looking at him for the first time — not the boy she had dragged out of rivers and tunnels and shadowed wells, but something older, heavier, tied to a history she hadn't wanted to touch.
Finally:
"…You think the Root made you to replace Azhar."
Manraj swallowed.
"I don't think it. I feel it."
Zoya's fists tightened.
"How long have you been feeling it?"
"Since the river," he said quietly. "But I didn't understand it until… now."
She stared at him.
"So when the Root first called you Eryth—"
"It wasn't naming me," he said. "It was naming the vacancy."
Zoya's jaw trembled.
"The empty space Azhar left."
Manraj nodded.
"That's why the countdown started after he vanished. The Root wasn't pulling me. It was… checking. Measuring how incomplete I still was."
The ward flickered again.
Not from power loss.
From truth.
Zoya turned abruptly, pacing away, hand over her mouth.
"Zoya—"
"I need a second," she snapped — not in anger, but in fear. "Just one."
She stood with her back to him, staring at the dried fountain.
When she spoke, her voice was low. Controlled.
"Azhar never told me everything. Not about his assignments. Not about his shadow-core. Not about the day the Root cut the guardian and the Under-Root was born."
She turned back to him.
"But he did tell me one thing."
"What?"
Her eyes softened — not with warmth but with the weight of memories she had carried alone.
"He said he was a replacement."
Manraj froze.
"…What?"
Zoya nodded.
"He said he wasn't the Root's first choice. Just the last one standing. And that one day, the Root might choose someone else."
Manraj felt the bottom drop out of the world.
"Zoya… why didn't you tell me this?"
"Because I didn't know what it meant!" she cried. "I thought he was being dramatic. Or guilty. Or—"
She stopped.
Her Silence flickered like static.
"Or maybe he knew the Root was already building his successor."
Manraj stepped backward.
"No."
"Manraj—"
"No," he repeated, louder. "I'm not replacing him. I'm not—"
His chest pulsed violently.
The countdown flashed.
26 → 25 → 26
He winced, gripping his ribs.
Zoya rushed forward.
"HEY—HEY—look at me."
He shook his head.
"I'm not Azhar—"
"No one said you were."
"I'm not meant to be him—"
"You're not."
"But the Root—"
"—doesn't get to decide that."
Manraj froze.
Zoya grabbed his shoulders, forcing his gaze to steady.
"Listen to me. I don't care what the Root wanted. I don't care what the Under-Root wants. I don't care what the countdown thinks you're supposed to be."
Her voice broke—just once.
"You are Manraj. You are not a replacement, you're not a missing shard, you're not a vessel for someone else's shadow. You're you. And that is the only thing keeping the Under-Root from claiming you outright."
His breathing steadied.
"Okay," he whispered.
"No," she said firmly. "Say it properly."
He swallowed.
"I'm not his replacement."
Zoya nodded.
"And I am not losing you to a prophecy neither of us agreed to."
A long silence spilled between them.
But this time, it wasn't empty.
It was grounding.
Warm.
Human.
Then the ward flickered—
this time violently.
Zoya snapped her gaze to the stone lines.
"Manraj—something's pushing against it."
Fear slammed back into him.
"The Under-Root?"
"No," she said. "Worse."
The stone cracked.
Just slightly.
A low hum rose through the air — not Deep, like the Under-Root.
Higher.
Sharper.
Like glass remembering it's supposed to break.
Manraj stepped back instinctively.
"Zoya—what is that?"
She didn't answer at first.
Then she whispered:
"…the Root."
The air grew bright.
Too bright.
White-gold light seeped through the cracks in the ward, circling them like a slow tightening ring.
Zoya cursed.
"No, no, no—Azhar erased these wards for a reason—why is it—why now—"
Manraj staggered.
His chest burned as the number pulsed erratically.
26 → 26 → 25 → 26 → 25
It wasn't the Under-Root moving.
It was the Root reacting.
Calling.
Remembering.
Trying to reclaim the piece it had carved out long ago.
Zoya grabbed his arm.
"Manraj—listen to me—"
His vision blurred.
"Zoya—what's happening?"
Her voice cracked.
"The Root… found you."
He inhaled sharply.
"And it's reaching back."
The ward shattered.
Light crashed inward like a wave.
And Manraj felt himself pulled —
not downward not upward but sideways—
into somewhere he had been before.
A place between memories.
A place between shadows.
A place Azhar once stood and walked away from.
Zoya screamed his name—
"MANRAJ!"
—right as the world split again.
And the countdown vanished.