Chapter 150: Whispers of the next trial [1]
The city healed in small ways first.
Under the influence of his growing domain, Clayton’s Aspect powers grew stronger than ever before, and the passive effects of his Verdant domain assisted in the healing of the city.
It started with cracks closing, even as nets went up where stone had fallen.
Children learned the new paths without being told. The south field no longer smelled like fresh sap; it smelled like damp ash and clean tools.
The next morning, Clayton walked the morning circuit alone.
He traced the wall with his palm. Roots under the skin answered him, slow and steady. They were tired, but they were whole, and they were beginning to thrive. The damage from the Behemoth was now a map of stronger joints.
He paused at the rebuilt parapet and looked out.
From there, he saw the gray clouds hugging the horizon. He saw a line of scavenger birds circle the far ruins, but then they drifted on. They posed no threat; there was no movement that mattered yet.
He took a deep breath, long and slow.
By now, the weight of the Third Trial tugged at him like a low tide.
Not a voice, not a command, but a pull, almost like a divine calling. It rose and fell behind the day’s noise, and it never stopped.
He could not ignore it.
But he would not rush it.
He turned from the wall and went down into the city.
The city was boisterous and bubbling with activity again. Markets had opened on schedule, and vendors talked in low voices.
Steam from broth pots mixed with mint from hanging strands of herb.
At a corner of the market, a girl sold simple woven bracelets with seed-charms threaded through. On another side, a boy sat on a crate and tried to whistle with two fingers. He failed miserably though and laughed at himself.
There was no tension, just quiet peace and serenity, and life.
Two Green Wardens passed by with spears and empty bowls, Green Wardens were the guards like police who patrolled inside the domain.
One nodded to Clayton and kept walking. The other almost stopped, then remembered the rule Soren had posted; eat first, talk later. They both disappeared into a stall and came out with bread.
Clayton stepped aside and watched them go.
The Rootsite had not become fearless. Rather, it had become practiced. And to him, that was better.
He crossed the square and entered the Spire.
The high hall smelled like clean leaves and worn leather. There, the map of moss covered the floor, pulsing in thin veins where supply moved. Twelve beacon dots glowed faintly at the edge, and none flared red.
Torren waited by the window.
He wore light gear that kept him nimble and fast, and he had slept. Just like Clayton, after sleeping after the harrowing battle against the Verdant Warden rank Behemorph, he looked better now.
"Wall looks good," he said as soon as he noticed Clayton.
"It holds," Clayton said.
Torren scratched his jaw. "The people too."
"For now," Clayton said. He looked down at the moss map.
On it, he touched the south quarter and the Aphid Network answered with quick flashes of carts, nets, and ropes, and a man on a ladder who cursed at a knot and then laughed.
Torren watched his face. "You feel it again?"
Clayton kept his eyes on the map. "Yes."
"The Trial?"
"Yes."
Torren’s voice dropped. "Soon?"
"Yes."
Torren nodded once. No fear sat in it, only fact.
Ever since Clayton choose him as his first choice to follow him to challenge Trial Three, just like Clayton, Torren changed a lot of his habits as most of what he did now focused on shedding all responsibilities in the Rootsite for a long journey.
Also, knowing just how dangerous Echoterra was from stories that he’d heard during his years growing and from Clayton’s own experiences, Torren dared not underestimate the trial.
If just Trial 1 caused Clayton so much problems, and cost him three centuries of his life, Torren knew that he had to prepare for anything.
Also, he still couldn’t forget the crazy reality that Clayton literally woke up in Trial 1 as a plant. Just imagining it gave him chills.
It’s been like forever since Clayton told him and his companions that truth, but it never left his head as his respect for Clayton remained as staunch as ever.
In his preparations for the trial, every day, he trained with new diligence to keep his body in optimal shape.
He looked at Clayton. "We don’t need to fear it. Along, it may be difficult but with us all together, I believe we can clear any trial".
"All we need to do is just keep pushing. We finish the last two bridges, we drill the third and sixth squads until they dream in formation. We double caches inside the Spire and cut two outside the walls. If we go, we go clean."
Clayton finally looked up; he nodded. "Yeah, we go clean."
"And we pick the rest of the team," Torren added, almost gentle.
"We pick them," Clayton said. He did not say when he would pick them; he did not say today, he did not say tomorrow, and he didn’t have to.
Torren left to run drills and he did not look back.
As for Clayton, he began the quiet work of choosing.
He did not sit to make a list. He already had one... seven names. He needed four in total; one was already chosen, three remained.
Quietly, from the shadows, he watched them move.
He followed Veyra first.
She was not on the tower. She was on the ground with twelve new archers as she taught them the ropes on how to protect the Rootsite.
Of her new apprentices, Clayton quickly saw their competence. Two were good, three were careless, and seven were afraid of their own hands.
"Breathe," she said. "Don’t hold your breath, it makes you shake. Let it go, then let the shot go with it."
A boy loosed too early and yelped as the string snapped his forearm.
Veyra did not scold him. She simply wrapped the arm, put the bow back in his hand, and said, "Again. No drama."
They shot until the sun cleared the Spire. When she dismissed them, she stayed. She gathered the broken shafts and poor fletches and spread them on a cloth. She picked apart the work, showing where each one had failed.
"An arrow is not a prayer," she said. "It is a tool. If you build it wrong, it is dead before it flies."
Clayton leaned on a beam and watched.
He remembered the crown, the conduit, and the line her arrow had drawn through air. He remembered the way she had not smiled until it was all over.
Veyra was reach, Veyra was clarity under pressure.
Veyra also kept the archers honest. If he took her, the wall would lose an eye and a teacher. If he left her, the Trial would lose a needle.
He did not decide yet, he just filed the watching away.
Later, he found Soren at the south drill yard.
There, Soren worked in silence. Fighters ran formations under his watch, with shields raised and restored like shutters in a storm.
He walked the line with a stick and tapped elbows that drifted. He said little but when he spoke, it broke through noise like a bell.
"Feet!"
"Breathe!"
"Eyes forward!"
He saw every lazy habit and broke it off clean with military discipline. He made three people run the whole course again when they cut a corner to talk. He did not shout, he did not need to.
Clayton stood with him at the end of the run.
"Third and sixth need time," Soren said. "They work but they don’t work together yet."
"They will," Clayton said. "Just give them time".
"Yes." Soren said with a smile before he cut his gaze sideways. "You still hear it?"
"Yes."
"Then we build like you leave tomorrow," Soren said. "Even if you leave in a week."
Clayton nodded once. "Write a night drill for bunkers if beacon four flares."
"Done," Soren said. He had likely already written it.
Soren was discipline. He fixed lines when minds bent, and made fear smaller by making tasks larger.
If Clayton took him, the Trial would have a spine. If Clayton left him, the Rootsite’s drills would keep shape on their own and his law board would hold. But the first week after departure would be harder without him.
Just like Veyra, he did not decide yet. He let Soren’s steady voice settle under the drum of the Heartseed.
He left to the next candidate in his list... Kaelin.
Kaelin was not at a post; he did not keep posts.
Clayton followed a mark only Kaelin would see. It was a notch in a drain lip, and it led to a gap behind a collapsed stair. The gap led to a thin ladder grown into the back of a shell.
There, Kaelin sat on the roof with a bolt of cord and two of the hollow spines he had stolen from the Behemoth.
His fingers moved fast as he tied the cord into a pattern that did not reveal itself until he pulled a single knot and a snare bloomed in clean geometry.
He grinned at the device like a child.
"What does it do?" Clayton asked.
Kaelin twitched and then laughed, low. "Of course you are there."