Chapter 458: What the Body Chooses to Keep

The path to Eir’s core took less time than Damon had expected.

The forest seemed to have abandoned any attempt to hide the direction.

Roots moved aside before the group reached them, branches lifted out of the way, and even small streams temporarily altered their flow to allow Neria’s stretcher to pass.

It wasn’t a permanent transformation of the terrain.

Eir was simply using what already existed to make her daughter’s return easier.

Neria remained silent for most of the journey.

Liora walked beside her.

At times, a thin root would emerge from the ground and reach toward Neria’s hand.

It always stopped before making contact, waiting for her to respond.

Sometimes Neria held it.

Other times, she simply let the root remain there.

Eir accepted both.

When they finally reached the central clearing, the enormous tree that served as the entity’s main point of communication was already awake.

Dozens of tiny eyes had appeared across its trunk.

Damon looked at them.

"That’s a little excessive."

Liora replied:

"She’s nervous."

"She has fifty eyes."

"Fifty-three."

Damon quickly counted the closest ones.

"I’m not checking."

The stretcher was placed over an area covered in thick, soft roots.

The four Order agents who had helped transport Neria stepped back, clearly uncomfortable being so close to the entity their organization had attempted to imprison only a few days earlier.

Eir paid no attention to them.

All of her focus was on Neria.

A root emerged in front of the stretcher.

It stopped.

Neria extended her hand.

The contact was different from the first time.

Her entire body relaxed.

The small plant structures beneath her skin turned green almost immediately, and several thin roots emerged around the stretcher, but none touched her body unless she reached for them first.

Neria closed her eyes.

"Mother."

The voice came from the trunk.

"Daughter."

Liora sat on the ground beside her sister.

For several minutes, no one interfered.

There were no images.

No projected memories.

No attempt to explain one hundred and seventeen years in a few seconds.

Eir simply remained connected to both of them.

Ester was the first to break the silence.

"Neria."

She opened her eyes.

"Yes?"

"How are you feeling?"

Neria took some time to answer.

"Full."

Ester frowned.

"Define full."

"I can feel the forest again."

"Is that affecting your circulation?"

"No."

"Has your energy absorption increased?"

"Yes."

"How much?"

Neria looked toward Eir.

A simple image appeared over a nearby root.

Ester studied the plant channels inside the woman’s body and realized that the connection was supplying energy directly to structures that had remained weakened after decades of artificial nourishment.

"Slowly," Ester requested.

Eir responded immediately.

"Yes."

The flow decreased.

Neria looked at the healer.

"You just told my mother to stop feeding me."

"I told her to slow down."

"She waited one hundred and seventeen years."

"And your body still has limits."

Neria seemed to consider that.

Then she nodded.

"Fair."

Damon looked at Liora.

"She learns quickly too."

"My sister has always been reasonable."

Neria turned her head.

"You’ve known me for two days."

"Mother told me things."

"That’s cheating."

Liora smiled.

Aurelia had approached the central tree carrying the box containing the small root taken from the Vermillion Archive.

"Can we show her this?"

Neria looked at the sample.

Then nodded.

"Yes."

Aurelia opened the box and placed it on a stone surface.

Eir didn’t touch it immediately.

"Hers?" she asked.

"Yes," Neria replied.

A very thin root approached.

It stopped before reaching the sample.

Neria noticed.

"You can."

The root touched it.

The entire clearing went still.

Damon felt no pressure.

No surge of energy.

Eir’s reaction was stranger than that.

All the eyes spread across the trunk closed at the same time.

The root touching the sample remained motionless.

Liora became serious.

"Mother?"

Eir answered after several seconds.

"They hurt you badly."

Neria lowered her eyes.

"Yes."

"I didn’t know."

"I know."

"I could feel you."

"Parts of me."

"Yes."

Neria held the root that remained near her hand.

"I knew you were still here."

Eir’s voice became quieter.

"Wanted to come."

Neria raised her eyes.

"Why didn’t you?"

"Chains."

Damon understood before anyone needed to ask.

The Order had learned how to anchor parts of the forest long before the recent operation.

If Eir had attempted to reach Vermillion directly, Serik probably would have used the reaction to locate or restrain even more of the entity’s structures.

Neria understood as well.

"You would have been hurt."

"Yes."

"Then you did the right thing."

The forest became quiet.

It was strange to hear a daughter comforting something that occupied kilometers of territory.

Ester approached the stretcher.

"There’s something we need to decide."

Neria looked at her.

"My body."

"Yes."

Eir paid attention as well.

Ester pointed toward the red marks that still remained beneath the skin of Neria’s back and arms.

"The filaments have been disconnected, but parts of them are still embedded in the tissue. Some have scarred over. Others appear to pass through important plant structures."

Neria touched her own arm.

"My mother can remove them."

"Probably."

Damon looked toward Eir.

The tree answered:

"I can."

Ester crossed her arms.

"But we’re not simply going to restore one hundred and seventeen years."

"No," Eir replied.

Neria remained silent.

Ester sat beside her.

"You need to decide what you want to keep."

"I don’t want the filaments."

"That part is simple."

"I want my memories."

"Also simple."

Neria looked at her hands.

"I want to be able to leave the forest."

Aurelia raised her eyes.

That changed the question.

Neria continued:

"Some of the changes they made to me allow me to stay away from Mother for longer periods. Before, I could manage months. Now I can remain away much longer."

Liora became serious.

"You want to keep that?"

"Maybe."

Eir didn’t respond.

Damon watched the trunk.

"You don’t like it."

"No."

Neria tightened her grip around the root.

"But it’s my body."

Eir took only a second to answer.

"Yes."

Damon fell silent.

So did Ester.

It was a small sentence.

But perhaps it was the most important thing Eir had said since they arrived in the Valley.

Neria took a deep breath.

"Then I want to remove everything that still sends information outside. I want the parts that hurt me gone. But I don’t want to return to the body I had before I was taken."

Ester asked:

"Do you want to do that now?"

"No."

Eir remained still.

No insistence.

Neria looked at her mother.

"I want to rest first. After that, you and Ester can examine everything together."

The tree answered:

"Yes."

Ester nodded.

"That’s a sensible decision."

Damon looked surprised.

Ester turned toward him.

"What?"

"Nothing. I was just expecting you to say she needed to sleep."

"She does."

"Naturally."

Neria laughed.

Damon started to move away when he felt something strange in his chest.

He stopped.

It wasn’t the pain in his ribs.

It also wasn’t the vampiric pressure he had recognized since long before meeting Eir.

It was a brief sensation of warmth passing through the area beneath his heart.

Then it disappeared.

Ester noticed his movement.

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

She stared at him.

Damon corrected himself.

"Something."

"Better."

Aurelia approached.

"Where?"

Damon touched his chest.

"Here."

Several of Eir’s eyes opened.

"Connection."

Ester immediately became serious.

"The ancestral one?"

"Yes."

"Did it change?"

"A little."

Damon looked at the tree.

"Did you do something?"

"No."

"You’re sure?"

"Yes."

Ester placed two fingers against his pulse and then pressed a very thin needle against a point near his chest.

"Circulation is normal."

Aurelia asked:

"What did you feel?"

"Heat. For one second."

"When?"

Damon looked at Neria.

"When Eir acknowledged that some of her modifications could remain."

Aria, who had been copying the information about Maerin until then, raised her head.

"That may have meant something to your structure."

Damon exhaled.

"My body responds to arguments now?"

"Not literally."

"I hope not."

Eir quickly displayed Damon’s representation again.

The three connections remained exactly where they had been.

But the one passing through the region near his heart had become slightly more defined.

Ester pointed at it.

"It didn’t open a new channel."

"No," Aurelia replied. "It only stabilized one that already existed."

Damon studied the image.

"Why?"

Eir answered:

"Use."

"I didn’t use it."

Aurelia thought for a moment before answering.

"Maybe you’re interpreting use too narrowly."

Damon looked at her.

"Explain."

"Your ancestral body wasn’t designed only for combat or energy absorption. It was designed to keep different systems compatible. You’ve spent days in an environment where you’re being exposed to structures that your circulation recognizes as related to its own origin."

Aria added:

"And you’ve been making decisions about which states to accept or reject."

Damon frowned.

"Decisions change circulation?"

Eir answered:

"Choices."

He stared at the tree.

"Maerin."

"Yes."

The word returned to the earlier explanation.

Nutrition.

Environment.

Injuries.

Energy.

Choices.

It wasn’t that thinking something magically altered the body.

The ancestral structure responded to the way the organism lived.

To what it accepted.

What it used.

What it needed to sustain.

Damon lowered his hand.

"So nothing changes."

"Yes," Eir replied.

"No restoration."

"Yes."

"No tree trying to help while I’m asleep."

Eir went silent.

Damon narrowed his eyes.

"Eir."

"No."

Ester started laughing.

"She thought about it."

"I noticed."

Liora tried to defend her mother.

"She only considers possibilities."

"That’s exactly how problems start."

Neria laughed again.

The tension in the clearing eased.

Not long afterward, Eir opened an area of roots near the core so Neria could rest without remaining on the stretcher.

Ester supervised the entire process and had the four Order agents help transfer her onto a natural bed formed from plant fibers.

The men looked as though they had no idea where to look.

One of them finally asked Varos:

"Are we staying here?"

"Until tomorrow."

"And the entity accepts that?"

Eir answered directly.

"Yes."

The agent stiffened.

Damon walked past him.

"You get used to it."

"You got used to it?"

"No."

By nightfall, the group finally managed to rest.

Aria and Aurelia continued discussing the records, but Damon confiscated both notebooks when he realized neither of them intended to sleep.

Aria looked offended.

"Give it back."

"Tomorrow."

"I was still working."

"That was the excuse you used before falling asleep with your face on top of them."

Aurelia tried to take one of the notebooks.

Damon raised his arm.

"You too."

"I didn’t fall asleep."

"That’s exactly the problem."

Ester watched from a distance.

"I’m proud."

"Don’t start."

Damon took the notebooks with him and found a place beside a more distant tree.

He sat down.

After a few seconds, a root emerged beside him.

It stopped.

He looked at it.

"Do you want something?"

"No."

"Then why are you here?"

"Company."

Damon fell silent.

That, he hadn’t expected.

"You’re an entire forest."

"Yes."

"And you want company."

"Yes."

Damon leaned his back against the trunk, careful not to put pressure on his ribs.

"You can stay."

The root remained beside him.

It didn’t touch him.

Several minutes passed.

Damon closed his eyes.

"Can you feel Maerin anywhere?"

"No."

"Her descendants?"

"Sometimes."

He opened his eyes.

"Sometimes?"

"Pieces."

"Recently?"

Eir took some time to answer.

"Yes."

Damon became serious.

"Where?"

"Don’t know name."

"Direction?"

The root moved across the ground.

It pointed west.

Damon watched it.

It wasn’t Mirath.

It wasn’t Vermillion either.

"Far?"

"Yes."

He thought for several seconds.

"We’re not going after them."

Eir remained quiet.

Damon added:

"Yet."

The root made a small movement that might have been agreement.

He exhaled.

For now, there were patients in Vermillion, a Scarlet Order about to discover what its own director had done, and Neria, who still had to relearn how to live outside a cylinder.

Maerin’s unknown descendants could wait.

Damon closed his eyes again.

The root remained beside him throughout the night.

And for the first time in several days, nothing tried to change his body while he slept.