Chapter 51

The origin-wound did not ask again.

It simply began to take.

Origin-mud surged higher through the southern grounds, no longer testing the soil’s capacity in abstract. It moved with selective precision, flowing toward the living root that still burned in Kael’s chest. The graft he had forced into the earth pulsed in painful synchrony with the rising tide, as though the land and the wound had reached a private agreement: the wolf who had offered the syllables would be the cleanest proof of whether those syllables could survive his absence.

On the living side of the sealed door, Kael felt the decision settle over him like a second...