CHAPTER 39: UNDERWATER ROOTS

  “You’re kind of creepy. Do you know that?” Suryel said slowly, eyes narrowed just a fraction. “How did you find the exact place where I came in?”

  They stood before the end of the corridor.

  Not a dramatic end.

  No grand archway or carved declaration.

  Just stone tapering inward, the passage narrowing with a deliberate subtlety that made the space feel less like architecture and more like a throat deciding whether to swallow.

  The corridor itself seemed to hold its breath.

  The walls leaned closer the farther forward one looked, their surfaces smooth in places and scarred in others.

  As though time had hesitated here repeatedly and never quite decided what to do with the space.

  Shadows pooled along the edges, thickest near the floor, refusing to behave like normal darkness.

  They did not stretch or retreat.

  They lingered.

  Watching.

  As if waiting their turn.

  Suryel shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

  Her fingers twitched at her side, itching to touch the walls again, to press her palm flat against the stone just to reassure herself that it was solid, real, anchoring. She resisted the urge. Some instinct told her that once she touched it, the place would notice.

  Helel, meanwhile, looked entirely too comfortable.

  He rolled one shoulder in a lazy shrug, wings rustling faintly as if the narrowing corridor were nothing more than a mild inconvenience. “I took a guess.” He said lightly. “This is your domain. Your abode.”

  “You meant.” Suryel corrected, stepping closer despite herself, curiosity pulling harder than caution, “This was my room.”

  She emphasized was.

  Helel’s grin sharpened, crooked and unapologetic, as he reached out and pulled the door open with a flourish that suggested he’d been waiting for this exact moment.

  The hinges didn’t creak.

  The door didn’t resist.

  It opened like it had been expecting her.

  Suryel perked up immediately. The shift in her was instant and unmistakable. Her shoulders loosened. Her breathing slowed.

  Her eyes shimmered as they took everything in, darting from one familiar shape to another as recognition sparked in uneven bursts.

  Her hands drifted forward without conscious permission, brushing over the wooden frame of a loom set near the wall. Her fingers traced the worn edge of a lyre resting on a stand, pausing as if the instrument might hum under her touch if she lingered too long.

  She crouched near the bed, running her thumb over a dent in the poster leg, brow furrowing as memory nudged at her from just out of reach.

  Small things.

  Trivial things.

  And yet they landed harder than monuments.

  “It looks…” Her voice softened, almost reverent. “Neat.”

  She didn’t say it to Helel.

  She said it to the room itself.

  She moved slowly, reverently, picking objects up and turning them over, examining them at eye level like artifacts pulled from a personal museum she hadn’t known she’d curated.

  The space smelled faintly of wood and old fabric and something floral she couldn’t name, a scent of morning flowers, gardenias, that tugged at her chest without fully surfacing into memory.

  Helel leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching her with an expression that flickered between fondness and something sharper. He noted that it was when she looked at a dent in the bed leg, he filed it away with a private smirk.

  So she remembers hitting that post with her spear, he thought. Cute.

  “What do you remember.” He asked casually, as if discussing weather, “Between the Abyss Realm and here?”

  Suryel stilled. “You mean the your… house— Cave?”

  Helel sighed, blinking his eyes before he nodded yes.

  Her fingers paused mid-motion, hovering above a folded piece of fabric. She lowered it slowly, setting it back where she’d found it, and straightened.

  “I saw a tree.” She muttered, gaze unfocused as she stared at nothing in particular. “It looked like the Star Bearing Tree. But it had no light.”

  She moved as she spoke, pacing the room in small, measured steps, eyes scanning at eye-level now, as if the memories were embedded in the walls rather than inside her.

  “And the floor was rude.” She added, a faint huff of humor slipping through despite herself. “It ate me and spit me out. I didn’t think to check the door.”

  The humor didn’t hold.

  Something in her chest ached quietly, a pressure that felt both heavy and hollow. Recognition tangled with loss, familiarity brushing up against something she had not yet grieved properly.

  The room felt too full and too empty all at once.

  Helel pushed off the doorframe and crossed the room, his steps uncharacteristically deliberate. The air shifted with him, the casual chaos draining out of his posture until something steadier took its place.

  “Before I continue,” He said, stopping a few steps in front of her. “About how we get out of here, I need you to promise me something.”

  Suryel blinked.

  She looked up at him, then past him, her gaze flicking briefly to the open doorway behind her.

  The corridor beyond still waited, narrow and watchful.

  Back is simple, her instincts whispered.

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  That way is known.

  She swallowed and nodded anyway, teeth pressing together. “Uh… okay? I will.” A beat. “Though that doesn’t really keep me unafraid. So let’s hear it.”

  “Fair.” Helel replied, voice dead calm now, stripped of theatrics. “Now, look up. And try not to panic.”

  Her stomach sank.

  Anxiety curled tight in her ribs but she still obeyed, lifting her gaze toward the ceiling.

  She froze.

  The scene from her dreams stretched above her, vast and impossible.

  Golden light flickered faintly in the distance, refracted as though through deep water, and there it was—

  The true Star Bearing Tree, immense beyond scale, looming far above like a sun caught mid-thought.

  Its branches spread outward in slow, deliberate arcs, shedding illumination that pulsed gently rather than shone.

  And beneath it.

  The roots.

  They sprawled and curled in every direction, thick and branching and endless, like living veins turned inside out.

  A reverse Star Bearing Tree, its lifeblood threading downward instead of up, filling the darkness with motion.

  Each movement above created a ripple.

  Subtle.

  Slow.

  As though the entire ceiling were a mirrored surface, responding to shifts far beyond her reach.

  The effect was hypnotic, disorienting, and unmistakable.

  It was the black lake.

  The walls of the room seemed to lean in closer, her peripheral vision tightening as her arms lifted slightly, instinctively, as if she could shield herself from what loomed overhead.

  But nothing fell.

  No droplets. No leaks. No cascade.

  The faint swishing of the underwater tableau remained contained, distant, impossibly stable.

  Relief washed through her.

  Briefly.

  Her eyes lingered, studying the scene above with growing fascination.

  Awe crept in despite the fear, the same feeling she’d had as a child staring up at massive aquarium glass, small and safe and overwhelmed all at once.

  Until she saw something else.

  Her breath hitched.

  Her body shook as she slapped a hand over her mouth, stifling a cry before it could escape.

  Looking at the Star Bearing Tree might have blown her mind, but she could recover from that.

  This—

  Was worse.

  With the light of the shining tree far above, she could now make out vague shapes moving within the lake below the roots.

  Silvery traces shimmered through the water.

  At first, she thought of fish.

  Which would have been fine.

  Expected.

  Normal, even.

  But no.

  Her stomach dropped as understanding snapped into place.

  It was a swarm.

  Not fish.

  Not anything that belonged neatly to water.

  Human-like forms drifted in clusters, their movements slow and synchronized.

  Their bodies tapered into long, elegant tails like arowanas, scales catching the light in muted flashes.

  Their faces were pale, eyes clouded and unfocused, blind yet purposeful in their drifting.

  And then one yawned.

  Its jaw unhinged with horrifying ease, opening wide to reveal layered teeth that curved inward like a lamprey’s maw before snapping shut again.

  “Helel, what are those?!” She whimpered, backing into him, fingers clawing at his arm as she tried to retreat toward the door.

  The temperature in the room dropped sharply.

  Goosebumps raced along her skin as the imagined cold of the water above seeped into her bones.

  She felt certain, irrationally certain, that the ceiling would give way at any moment.

  That the lake would spill.

  That they would be swallowed whole.

  She tugged harder on Helel’s sleeve, breath coming fast and shallow, panic boxing her in from all sides.

  The floor beneath her feet felt damp.

  Whether from imagined water or her own sweat, she couldn’t tell.

  She didn’t want to find out.

  “Shades.” Helel said evenly, keeping one arm outstretched to block her escape, grounding her with steady pressure. “In shoals. Within their natural habitat.”

  Her head snapped toward him, eyes wide. “They come in clusters?!”

  She took a careful step back. Then another. Tiptoeing, as if sudden movement might draw their attention through the impossible distance.

  Helel didn’t move.

  But he didn’t let her pass.

  The creatures’ silvered eyes flickered within the water above, shifting with intent she couldn’t interpret. Her palms were slick. Her chest heaved.

  Don’t touch the water.

  Don’t breathe wrong.

  Don’t move at all.

  Her gaze snapped back to the Star Bearing Tree, and the sheer scale of it made her feel infinitesimal.

  The depth of the water felt taller than any height she could climb, heavier than any sky she’d stood beneath.

  What is Helel getting out of showing me this? she thought, wiping her feet together nervously.

  Then it clicked.

  She whipped back toward him. “Wait. Hold on. You said something about ‘getting out of here.’ Then you told me to look up.”

  Her hands made an unmistakable swimming motion. “Is this the plan?!”

  Her face said everything her mouth hadn’t yet managed.

  No way in hell.

  Helel chuckled, scratching the back of his neck. “Yep. That’s the plan.”

  Silence fell.

  Her eyes narrowed.

  He started to smile politely.

  Then she ducked under his arm and bolted down the corridor, her shout echoing off the stone. “I’m getting out of here and back in that other room!”

  “Oh, but there’s no other way out, Suryel!” Helel called after her, already knowing how this would go. “Come back here!”

  “Think of another way and don’t call me!” Her voice bounced back, sharp with panic. “I don’t even know how to swim!”

  The door to her abode slammed shut.

  Helel exhaled and sank to the floor, wings folding in with a tired rustle.

  He tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. On a whim, he dragged a finger through the dust at his side, writing carefully.

  We are here. Look in the black lake, a little to the right under the tree.

  The dust stirred, swirling faintly as the words formed.

  He traced the letters one last time, making sure they held.

  They did.

  But it didn’t dissolve. Didn’t absorb. Didn’t shift.

  The Archive Tower did not claim them.

  Understanding settled in his chest, heavy and clear. This place did not write itself with every breath. It did not bend to casual will or brute force.

  The only way out was sharp clarity.

  A steady heart.

  Willpower.

  And it would not come from him. It would come from Suryel.

  Or it would come at a price.

  “I… kind of miss Yael.” He muttered, scratching behind his ear as he leaned back against the wall. “He would know what to say to you.”

  He looked up again, the depth above seeming smaller now than the distance between him and her.

  That distance wasn’t physical.

  It was the space between what she had seen and what she could trust.

  Between fear and courage.

  Between the room she remembered and the place she had to face.

  And until she bridged it herself, no fire, no blade, no clever trick of space would carry her across.

  “But I promise you this, Suryel.” He said quietly, voice steady despite everything. “No matter what. You will get out of here.”