Mira knelt at the base of the dying tree and pressed her palm to its gray bark. The wood gave under her hand like wet bread. Above her, sparse leaves clung to brittle branches, and a few red fruits hung shriveled on their stems. She had come to save it. She did not yet know how. The hatchling padded a slow circle around the trunk, scales catching the dim light. She stopped at a break in the ground where roots twisted down into a pit of jagged stone. Dark water pooled below. The hatchling flattened, pressed against Mira's leg, and stared into the hole. Mira opened the wooden box at her hip. The iron clasps had gone green with age. Inside, a cloth pouch of pale salt smelled of brine and old rot. The diggers who packed it were long dead. She closed her hand around it and listened to the wet grinding sound rising from the roots below. She lowered herself over the stone edge. The hatchling climbed onto her shoulder and gripped tight. Halfway down, Mira touched a root and pulled back fast. Beneath the bark, something pulsed — not rot alone. Something harder. Something breathing. She understood then that the salt would not be enough. Whatever sickened the tree was alive, and it was waiting for her at the bottom.

Mira clung to the pit wall. Below her, the wet grinding grew louder. Above her, something else moved. The roots at the mouth of the pit creaked and twisted. They were drawing closed like fingers around a coin. The hatchling flattened against her neck and hissed low. Mira looked up. The circle of gray sky was shrinking fast. Dirt sifted down into her hair. If the roots sealed, she would be trapped with the breathing thing below. She scrambled up. Her boots slipped on wet stone. She caught a root and it tightened around her wrist like it knew her. She gasped and tore her arm free, leaving skin behind. "Give me your hand." The voice came from above. A woman knelt at the pit's edge, blade drawn, dark hair falling forward. She drove the sword into the moving roots and pinned them to the stone. The roots shuddered and slowed. Mira reached up. A gloved hand closed on hers and pulled hard. She came over the lip in a tangle of dirt and scales, the hatchling clinging to her collar. They rolled clear and lay panting on the packed ground. Behind them stood a low wooden lodge built right over the pit, its stone foundation cracked where roots had pushed through. The woman pulled her blade free and the roots snapped shut behind them with a sound like a slammed door. "Kael Thornward," the woman said. She did not offer her hand again. "The diggers built this lodge to hold the thing down there. It is not holding anymore. You went in with salt. Salt will not be enough." She looked at Mira's torn wrist, then at the sealed pit. "We try again. From up here. Tonight."