The village stank of rot.
Kael could smell it before they ever crossed the shattered threshold. Wet meat. Spoiled blood. The thick, cloying reek of magic that had turned sour.
Ash growled low in his throat as they approached. Riven's knife was already drawn.
"What the hell happened here?" Kael whispered.
They stepped past the remnants of a gate — little more than two charred posts — and into what had once been a farming hollow.
Now it was a grave.
Bodies lay strewn across the narrow lanes, some whole, most not. Faces twisted in agony. Black vines coiled around broken limbs, pulsing faintly. The village well bubbled with dark water.
A rune glowed on the side of a crumbled barn — not green like Kael's. Red. Jagged. Thirsting.
Riven crouched low. "They were bound alive."
Kael swallowed bile. "By what?"
"Not what. Who."
They didn't wait long for the answer.
A rasping voice echoed from deeper within the ruins. "Another rootworm crawling through my garden…"
Kael spun. Ash bristled.
From the shadows emerged a man.
Bare-chested, tall, eyes burning like embers. His skin was cracked like stone, pulsing with red veins. Dozens of vines sprouted from his back like wings—each one ending in a skeletal hand.
He wasn't just a rogue Binder.
He was consumed.
"You hear them, don't you?" the man crooned. "The dead begging to be remembered. I gave them roots. I made them bloom."
Kael stepped forward, cautious. "You used Lifebinding to do this?"
The man smiled. "Lifebinding? No. Lifefeeding. Why bind when you can devour?"
Riven muttered, "He's a Hollow Thorn. They use the old runes — reversed. They don't heal. They harvest."
The Binder raised his arms.
The vines twitched.
And the corpses around them stood up.
Combat exploded.
Ash lunged at the first reanimated villager, ripping its throat open — but the corpse barely slowed, its limbs held up by writhing tendrils.
Kael turned, barely ducking as another came from behind — a child-sized husk with roots spilling from its mouth.
Riven danced between them, slashing quick, precise, each strike severing vine instead of flesh. She moved like someone who knew how to kill things that didn't bleed.
Kael backed toward the well, his hands shaking.
He needed to Bind.
But if he pulled too hard from the earth here… what would he awaken?
"Kael!" Riven shouted. "Now or never!"
Kael dropped to his knees.
Drew blood from his palm.
Pressed it to the ground—
And screamed.
The ground exploded in green light.
Roots tore through the cobblestones like spears, impaling three undead at once. Thorned vines wrapped around the limbs of the Hollow Thorn, yanking him back.
The rogue Binder laughed.
"Finally! Another with the hunger!"
Kael's vision blurred. His body trembled. But he stood.
"You don't speak for the roots," he growled. "You only take."
The Binder surged forward, red vines whipping like lashes. Kael raised his arms — and a barrier of living bark rose in front of him, deflecting the strike.
Riven leapt from the side, slicing through the man's shoulder.
Ash slammed into his knees.
Kael drove his palm into the soil again—this time whispering something older, something raw.
The vines around the Binder turned against him.
They crawled into his mouth, his ears, his eyes—seeking home. His scream was gurgled, wet.
And then he burst.
Silence.
The red rune on the barn faded.
The corpses collapsed.
The air cleared.
Kael fell forward, gasping, blood leaking from both nostrils.
Riven caught him. Held him up with both arms. Her hands trembled.
"Don't you ever do that again without warning," she whispered, her voice raw.
He looked up, dazed. "Had to."
She didn't answer.
But her hand touched his cheek again.
This time, longer.
And when he looked into her eyes, there was no distance anymore. Just heat. Worry. Feeling.
"I'll kill anything that tries to take you," she murmured. "Even the forest."