C36 What the Roots Remember

The silence that followed was not empty. It pulsed with breath—deep, ancient, healing. Evelyne stood still in the hollow, her hands trembling as the energy coursed through her, weaving flame and root into one shared pulse. The pactfire within her no longer burned. It grew. The nest behind her cracked and fell apart, not in ruin, but in release. Bones splintered into the soil