"THE DREAM ROOT"
Allium was transported onto the hovercraft the way you carried something you couldn't afford to drop.
The bed wasn't just reinforced—Solara alloy braced beneath it in interlocking ribs—and a balance system hummed softly at its core, keeping him perfectly horizontal no matter how the craft shifted. Even still, his body looked wrong in motion. Too still. Too light. As if the world had started treating him like an object instead of a person.
Jax led them on board first, one hand on the ramp rail as the craft's interior lights warmed.
"Get comfortable," he said, voice dry, not unkind. "This will be a trip."
Rose took the seat closest to Allium without discussion. She angled herself toward him, eyes tracking every micro-shift in his breath, every flicker under his skin that suggested his glow might return or vanish. Her hands rested in her lap like she didn't trust them to be steady.
Cassidy drifted toward the rear power bay—toward the humming, buzzing center that felt like the nearest thing to home. She didn't sit in the cushioned seats. She perched near the vibration, shoulders tight, as if she could borrow calm from a machine that only knew function.
Thane settled beside Jax at the forward console, co-pilot controls lighting beneath his fingers in soft orange pulses. He didn't speak much. He didn't need to. The craft didn't feel like a vehicle today. It felt like a stretcher with engines.
Weaver did not sit.
He stood by Allium's bed as though sitting would mean admitting fatigue, and fatigue would mean permission for something to end. His eyes stayed forward, fixed on nothing in particular—but his threads moved constantly, faint and invisible, touching the air around Allium in gentle checks.
Life.
Barely.
The hovercraft lifted with grace.
Thrusters angled downward, pressing air into the earth until the grass flattened in slow, controlled waves. At altitude, the rear thrusters rotated horizontally and the craft surged forward, the cabin vibrating with contained speed.
Solara's land fell away beneath them—red sands, scarred forest edges, distant structures trying to remain whole.
Jax's gaze stayed forward.
On the horizon, Virel's Tree rose like a blue omen.
Its looming glow did not welcome.
It tempted.
Jax pushed the engines harder.
Not for thrill—never for thrill—
but to race a clock he couldn't measure.
Silence filled the cabin like a second atmosphere.
It wasn't peaceful silence. It was the kind that forms when people are afraid their words might become real.
Cassidy broke it first, voice low, almost cautious.
"Weaver," she said. "You mentioned the Tree… cleanses corruption. What kind of corruption? Like the monster kind, or…?"
Weaver's threads paused a fraction, then resumed.
"In theory," he said, and the words sounded old in his mouth, worn by repeating them in his head for years without ever believing them fully, "anything that goes against your nature. If you hunger for souls… it would remove it."
He hesitated.
"And if you are unhappy with life," he added, quieter, as if he didn't want the universe to hear him making promises, "it will remove that too. But… as far as I know, no human I have met has passed."
Cassidy stared at him.
Her brows tightened.
"So how do we know it does that?" she asked.
Weaver exhaled. Not annoyance—something closer to defeat.
"Because of the ones who have," he said. "It is said in scripture. In words on the wind. Those who passed are enlightened. Gifted."
His eyes drifted, briefly, toward Virel's distant glow.
"But that is only rumor."
Then, gently—almost too gently—he asked her a question back.
"Why are you so curious?"
Cassidy shrugged.
It was a careless gesture that didn't match the way her fingers rubbed at her own arm, thumb working along skin like she was trying to erase something beneath it. Her gaze fixed on the floor a moment too long.
Weaver noticed.
Rose noticed too, from across the bed, without turning her head.
Cassidy did not explain.
The world beneath them began to change.
The red hue of Solara's region faded, the atmosphere shifting not by line but by feeling—red thinning into purple, purple dissolving into blue until the sky itself looked calmer than it had any right to be.
A deep, dreamlike blue swept over the hovercraft.
For a moment, Allium's glow responded.
Orange flickered to blue.
Then back to orange.
A quick, involuntary acknowledgment, like a body recognizing a presence before a mind could.
The cabin felt it.
Everyone looked toward the windows.
No longer sand.
No longer scarred forest.
Grass rolled beneath them in soft, unbroken stretches. A few distant trees stood like pines in the haze—too far away for detail, but shaped with deliberate simplicity, as if the land here preferred quiet forms.
The landscape looked… too peaceful.
Rose spoke without realizing she needed to.
"I've never actually been in Virel territory before."
Weaver's voice carried something faintly reflective.
"I have," he said. "Once. Many years ago. I helped the first human settlements carve a path."
Cassidy didn't comment.
She watched the rivers.
They flowed in slow, shining threads through the grass, their curves too gentle, too perfect—like the land was making an effort not to disturb itself.
Virel's Tree drew closer.
As large as Solara's.
As immense as Nexon's.
But its presence was different.
Solara burned.
Nexon decayed.
Virel… weighed.
Pressure settled over them as they approached, heavy and quiet, like a god shifting its attention—like something enormous had noticed their arrival and decided not to move away.
Near the base of the Tree lay a lake.
Its surface was mirror-still.
Rivers fed it and fled from it, and in its reflection the suns looked closer than they should have, as if the water didn't reflect the sky so much as interpret it.
Jax brought the hovercraft down slowly.
Thrusters angled, and the grass beneath them moved in calm waves, bending without protest. The landing didn't thud. It sighed.
The ramp lowered.
A cool gust slipped inside, carrying the scent of water and something stranger—clean, sharp, and faintly unfamiliar, like air that hadn't been breathed by fear in a very long time.
Jax stood from the pilot seat. Thane followed.
"All right," Jax said, looking to Weaver. "You're front and center. Tell her what she needs to do."
Weaver stepped toward the ramp.
He paused at the threshold, as if feeling Virel's attention in the bones of the craft.
Then he descended.
They followed, careful in their movement, not because the ground was dangerous, but because the place itself felt like it deserved gentleness.
The Tree dominated everything.
Up close, its bark was not rough like common wood. It looked layered—compressed rings of blue-black and luminous azure, as if light had been taught to behave like matter.
Weaver turned to Rose.
"You must approach," he said, voice low. "Speak your desire. And from what the stories tell… the bark splits, allowing you inside."
Cassidy stood near Rose, close enough to feel her cold. She listened without joking.
Something itched at Cassidy's wrist.
Small.
Persistent.
Like a mark beneath the skin trying to remember itself.
Rose nodded slowly.
She drew in a deep breath.
It felt like it could be her last breath chasing a life without hunger.
She started forward.
Jax stepped in her path—not blocking, just anchoring her with his presence.
"You sure you want to do this?" he asked.
Rose's breath came out through her nose, cold fog in the blue air.
"I do," she said. "I'm just nervous."
Jax gave a dry laugh, the sound short and nearly affectionate.
"Yeah," he said. "You're walking into a tree that's said to dissolve people."
Cassidy lifted a hand and poked Rose lightly on the shoulder.
Rose turned.
Cassidy's face held something like permission.
"Are you nervous to go alone?" Cassidy asked softly.
Rose blinked, caught off guard by the gentleness.
"Yeah," Rose admitted. "Why are you asking, Cassidy?"
Cassidy avoided her eyes.
Her voice dropped.
"Rose… I'd like to try cleansing myself too."
Rose froze.
Jax's expression tightened immediately.
"What?" he snapped, protective anger flaring. "Cassidy, absolutely not. I know your past haunts you, but—"
Cassidy stepped closer to him.
Her eyes were not bright.
No gloss.
No sheen of humor trying to save her.
It was the look of someone who had already survived the thing everyone else was afraid of.
"Jax," she said quietly, "I'm tired. I can't keep working or going on field missions to escape what happened."
Rose turned fully toward her.
"What do you mean?" Rose asked, voice careful.
Cassidy shook her head once.
"It doesn't matter explaining it," she said. "I… I want to do this. I need to do this."
Rose reached out and placed a hand on Cassidy's shoulder.
"It could kill you," Rose said.
Cassidy let out a short laugh.
"It could kill you too." She smiled.
It wasn't a happy smile.
It was a smile accepting an end that had happened long ago.
"And Rose," Cassidy added, still smiling as her eyes told the truth her mouth refused to dramatize, "I am already dead."
Rose's hand tightened slightly on her shoulder.
She saw through it.
Not the words.
The mask.
Jax stared at Cassidy, and something in him shifted—understanding not as comfort, but as surrender. He knew, in that moment, there was no stopping her.
Weaver approached, having heard enough.
He didn't interrupt. He didn't argue. His threads stilled as he looked at Cassidy's face with recognition that hurt.
He had seen this certainty once before.
In another.
"I will not stop you," Weaver said quietly. "If you feel this is right… I won't deny you your certainty."
Cassidy's smile softened, almost grateful.
"Thanks, grandpa," she said lightly, the humor thin but sincere. "We'll see you guys soon."
Then the two women turned toward the Tree.
As they walked, Virel's scale swallowed them—made them look smaller than they were, made the space around them feel like a cathedral without walls.
Rose and Cassidy stopped at the base.
Rose raised her chin.
Her voice carried into the air like a vow.
"I wish to be free of hunger…"
The Tree hummed.
A vibration moved through the ground—acceptance without warmth.
But the bark did not open.
Cassidy swallowed.
Then spoke.
"I wish to rid myself of grief."
Rose turned and looked at her—not questioning, not judging—only seeing, finally, the face beneath the mask Cassidy had worn so well.
The Tree hummed again.
Stronger.
The bark cracked.
Not violently—like a door deciding.
A seam of light appeared, splitting the trunk just enough to reveal an impossibly long hall beyond, made of luminous blue-white, stretching inward farther than a tree should contain.
An invitation.
A warning.
Cassidy stepped forward first.
"No turning back now," she said softly.
Rose followed close.
They entered.
The light swallowed them.
Behind them, the bark began to heal.
Slowly.
Gently.
Sealing like skin.
The seam vanished.
The Tree became whole again.
What followed was not a sound.
Not a scream.
Not a signal.
Just—
Silence.
END EPISODE 17 — "THE DREAM ROOT"