Elara Greenwhisper's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Elara Greenwhisper had wanted to leave the Hidden Green her whole life, but the forest chose this morning to speak to her instead. She knelt in the wet moss beside a fallen fawn. Blood matted its leg. She pressed her palm over the wound and let her gift rise. A soft green glow spread under her fingers. The bleeding slowed. The fawn's breathing eased. Then the fawn stopped watching her. It turned its head down and stared at the ground. The earth trembled under Elara's hand. Not a shudder from her healing. Something deeper, moving in the roots below the soil. She pulled back and pressed her ear to the moss. A low hum answered, faint and old, like a voice buried alive. "What is that?" she whispered. The hum stopped. But she had felt it. Her whole life, her people spoke of the Hidden Green as a city on the surface, nothing more. No one ever mentioned a sound beneath the roots. She stood, her heart pounding, and ran to the one person who kept every old story. Elder Moss sat outside his moss-woven house, sorting dried leaves into piles. His silver beard hung with tiny braids. He did not look up when Elara's shadow fell over him. "You felt the roots," he said. Elara stopped short. "You knew." "I hoped you never would." He set down a leaf with a slow, careful hand. "There is an old thing beneath us, Elara. Hidden long before you were born. Your people buried it and sealed the way down." "Then show me the way down." His blue eyes finally lifted to hers. "There is no way down. The paths through the roots were closed. Only a Rootwalker could ever open them again, and none of them know how. That was the point." Elara's stomach dropped. She had a name already. She turned and ran again. Daisy was gathering thin roots at the forest's edge when Elara found her. Daisy was a Rootwalker, and one of Elara's oldest friends. She could feel the hidden paths beneath the soil the way Elara felt a heartbeat under her hand. "There's something under the city," Elara said, breathless. "A sealed door in the roots. I need you to find it." Daisy frowned, then knelt and pressed both hands flat to the ground. She closed her eyes. For a long moment nothing happened. Then her fingers curled. "There," Daisy said softly. "A hollow. Old roots grown across an opening." She opened her eyes, and they were wide. "I can feel the way in." The two girls dug where Daisy pointed. Roots parted under her touch like curtains. Below them yawned a dark shaft, cold air rising from its throat. Stone steps curved down into black. Elara stared into the dark she had been told did not exist. The way down was open now. And she had no idea what waited at the bottom.