Four year ago-part III
The Whispered Void shimmered, a blacker-than-black void against the gloom, its limbs elongating and contracting as if made of smoke.
It didn't move like flesh, but flowed, defying gravity, gliding towards them. Its form was a grotesque mockery of life, unsettling because it was a thing that should not be.
The air around it grew cold, thin, and the very ground beneath Hatim's feet seemed to ripple, blurring the edges of his vision. The internal hum, the discordant vibration, intensified, pressing down on his mind like a physical weight.
"It feeds on harmony! Its presence unravels!" Granny Maldri's voice, usually a calm anchor, was sharp with alarm. Her eyes, wide with an ancient, primal fear, were fixed on the encroaching horror.
The Whispered Void surged, its insubstantial form solidifying just enough to lash out. It wasn't a strike, but a touch—a brush of pure, burning cold, aimed directly at Lyra.
She stumbled, disoriented by the Void's proximity, her eyes wide with terror as the creature loomed over her.
"LYRA!" Hatim screamed, his voice raw. He threw himself forward, a desperate, clumsy shield, but he was too slow, too human.
Then, a flash.
Granny Maldri. Her small frame, usually bent with age, straightened with a surge of impossible strength. Her eyes blazed with a fierce, unwavering light, mirroring the emerald glow of the Akar-Charged Blight-Weed she pulled from a hidden pouch. "By the Ash and the Roots!" she roared, her voice suddenly echoing with primordial power, "You will not have them!"
She slammed the base of her gnarled staff into the damp earth, and with a guttural chant, ignited the Blight-Weed. It burst into a searing flare of blinding emerald light, crackling with raw, uncontrolled energy that tasted like ash and static on Hatim's tongue.
This wasn't a plant born of True Akar; it was one twisted by the Unbinding's chaotic presence, a dangerous weapon Granny Maldri knew how to harness only in extremis.
The emerald light pulsed, raw and uncontrolled, forming a shimmering, temporary barrier that forced the Whispered Void back.
The creature recoiled, its form rippling violently, emitting a soundless shriek that felt like glass shattering inside Hatim's skull. It was a desperate, protective glyph, drawing on dangerous, raw Akar that even Granny Maldri rarely dared to touch.
The barrier held for a heartbeat, two. Long enough.
But as the emerald light dissipated, the Whispered Void, though momentarily repelled, lashed out one final, insidious time. Not with physical force, but with a surge of its essence.
It washed over Granny Maldri like an invisible wave, its touch a profound violation. She gasped, a small, choked sound, and then collapsed, her face suddenly ashen, her vibrant eyes dimming. The color seemed to drain from her, leaving her with a strange, translucent pallor. Her very being seemed to acquire that dull, cold dissonance Hatim had felt in the False Heart plant.
It was the mark of the Unbinding Akar, a spirit blight.
The Whispered Void, its form still rippling, retreated back into the oppressive shadows of the forest, its purpose fulfilled. It left behind only a chilling void, a distortion in the very air, and the sickly sweet smell of decay.
Hatim scrambled to Granny Maldri, his heart a frantic bird in his chest. "Granny! Are you hurt?"
There was no visible wound, no blood. But her skin felt cold, unnaturally so, and when he tried to perceive her Akar pulse, it felt distorted, fractured, like a song played out of tune.
"The... the blight," she whispered, her voice a thin, reedy echo of its former strength. "It touched me.
The Unbinding... it unravels the essence." A hacking cough wracked her frail body. "There is no remedy here. Not for this poison. Only... the purest Akar. From the Crowns. From an Ancient. Their healing is not merely mending flesh; it is realigning the very flow of being, countering the Unbinding's chaos."
Hatim stared at her, the words echoing in his mind, the horror of what had happened blossoming. This wasn't just a sickness; it was a fundamental undoing.
He felt a scream building in his throat, a primal roar of fear and helplessness for the woman who was his everything.
"NOOOOOOO!"
Hatim jolted awake, a strangled gasp tearing from his throat, his own scream still ringing in his ears. His body was slick with sweat, his heart hammering against his ribs as if trying to escape.
The raw stone floor beneath him was real, unyielding. The single, guttering torch in Kander's hidden chamber flickered, casting warped shadows, mercifully banishing the vivid details of the dream.
He sat up, disoriented, scanning the unfamiliar room. The nightmare clung to him, the cold touch of the Unbinding, the raw pain in his chest.
He was in Kander's room, the one he'd been brought to after the Babs. A dream. Just a dream. Yet, the ache was so real.