CHAPTER 191—THE THINGS THAT FEED A REALM III
The three of them stood motionless upon the mountain path.
The wind moved quietly through the crimson mist while the distant constellation remained suspended above the realm, its eighty-two stars glowing silently against the darkening heavens.
For several moments nobody spoke. Then Seraphine looked from the spirit to Leylin and back again.
"I'm sorry," she said, rubbing at her forehead.
"I just want to make sure I heard that correctly."
The spirit waited. "You have access to the memories inside those stars."
"No." Seraphine blinked.
The spirit pointed upward. "I can sense them," it said, then turned toward Leylin.
"But I cannot access them." Its expression darkened slightly.
"He can."
The mountain path became quiet again. Seraphine slowly turned toward Leylin, who looked no less confused than she felt.
"Have you ever accessed them?"
"No."
"Do you know how?"
"No."
"Do you even know what they are?" Leylin stared upward at the constellation. The stars had hung above the realm for months now.
He had watched them form, watched them grow, watched them slowly multiply across the heavens. Yet if someone asked him what they truly were..he had no answer.
"No," he said quietly.
The spirit studied him for several seconds, and then something strange crossed its face.
"As expected."
That immediately irritated Leylin. His eyes narrowed slightly.
"What exactly is that supposed to mean?"
The spirit seemed to consider its response carefully.
"When a child breathes, he does not think about breathing," it said, its gaze shifting toward the crimson sky.
"When a fish swims, it does not study water." Then it looked directly at Leylin.
"Why would you question something that has existed around you since the day you arrived?"
The answer annoyed him even more because it made sense. He remembered the empty realm, the grey nothingness, the silence. Then the first star. Then another. Then another. Eventually they had simply become part of his life, like the tree, like the river, like the mountain. He had stopped questioning them long ago.
The remainder of the descent passed in thoughtful silence. By the time they reached the valley floor, the crimson tree was already visible in the distance. Its massive black trunk stretched toward the heavens while silver leaves shimmered softly beneath the chained sun above, and the river wound lazily around its roots.
Everything felt familiar..comfortably familiar. Yet after meeting the spirit,
Leylin found himself looking at the landscape differently. The tree seemed larger than before, the river deeper, even the grass denser, as though the realm had continued changing while he wasn't paying attention.
The spirit stopped the moment they reached the tree. Its eyes widened slightly, then narrowed, then widened again.
For nearly a full minute it simply stood there staring upward into the silver canopy. Seraphine noticed first.
"What?"
The spirit didn't answer. Instead it walked slowly toward the trunk, one hand reaching outward to touch the bark, and froze.
A visible shudder passed through its body. The galaxies beneath its translucent flesh suddenly accelerated, entire currents of light twisting violently beneath its skin.
"What is it?" Seraphine asked again.
This time the spirit answered, very quietly: "This tree shouldn't exist."
Leylin folded his arms.
You've said that about almost everything here."
"No," the spirit shook its head immediately. "You don't understand."
Its gaze remained fixed on the trunk. "This shouldn't exist." The emphasis made both of them pause.
Slowly, the spirit walked around the tree, studying it, examining it, touching the roots, the leaves, the bark, like a scholar discovering something impossible.
Finally it stopped, then turned toward Seraphine. "You cultivate here." It wasn't a question. Seraphine nodded.
"Most of the time."
"You sleep here?
"Sometimes."
"You drink from the river.?
"Obviously." The spirit fell silent. Then it laughed,once, disbelievingly.
"What?" Seraphine frowned.
The spirit looked toward her vessel instinctively, then toward the tree, then back toward her, and finally understanding dawned in its eyes.
"You shouldn't be alive."
The statement was so blunt that even Leylin looked up. Seraphine stared.
"...Excuse me?" The spirit pointed directly at her.
"Your vessel matured nearly thirty years faster than it should have," it said,
then turned toward the river. "And you've been drinking from that." Then toward the tree.
"And cultivating beneath this." Its expression became increasingly strange. "As far as your body is concerned," the spirit swallowed,
"you've spent decades inside a nurturing ground that doesn't exist anywhere in the outside world."
Silence followed. Then Leylin spoke. "If that's true," he said, and the spirit looked toward him.
"Then what exactly is this tree?" For the first time since awakening, the spirit smiled. Not fearfully, not nervously..genuinely.
And that somehow felt more unsettling than anything else.
"I don't know." Its eyes lifted slowly toward the silver leaves above.
"But I think..." A leaf drifted free, spiraling gently toward the earth. The spirit caught it before it landed, then stared at it longer than necessary, almost reverently.
"I think this is the first thing I need permission to understand."