Chapter 184

My guess was that the left corridor eventually led back toward the surface while the right descended deeper into whatever underground complex the Covenant had carved beneath the mine.

Naevira pointed right. “That way,” she whispered. “That’s where I’m supposed to go.”

The lighting here was brighter. Not comfortable, but steady enough that the entire corridor remained visible beneath rows of closely spaced bulbs overhead.

And the breathing sound was louder now too. Wet. Rhythmic. Almost organic.

I gave a small nod and we headed deeper inside.

Nim and Vel took point while Ashlara and Clo followed close behind. Moss, Tansy, and Thae guarded the rear. The rest of us remained clustered toward the center of the formation.

We passed maintenance rooms filled with dead machinery and storage areas that clearly hadn’t been touched in years. Another corridor branched off to the left at one point, thick with more of the gallowborn root structure, but Naevira insisted we continue straight.

Eventually the corridor opened into a stairwell.

Concrete stairs with steel railings climbed upward and out of sight while another flight descended farther beneath the mountain than we could see.

The walls were completely overgrown.

Dark thorned brambles blanketed the concrete in tangled masses, swallowing pipes, seams, and support beams alike. Only the lights and the stairs themselves remained untouched.

“Which way from here?” I asked softly.

Her eyes drifted toward the descending stairs. “Down,” she whispered.

I exhaled slowly and looked into the darkness below. “Alright,” I said quietly. “Down it is.”

“Please,” a deep, calm voice said from everywhere at once. “Come in. Come see the future.”

We froze.

“I’ve wanted to meet you face to face for quite some time, Mr. Grimm,” the voice continued.

“And who are you?” I asked.

“I am the man who will shepherd the world into a new era.”

Moss crouched and sniffed at the roots covering the walls.

They twitched beneath her breath.

“So much for the element of surprise,” I muttered flatly.

“I would have allowed you to come in through the front door,” the Shepherd replied. “For what it’s worth, I appreciate you not killing those workers outside. They have families.”

“Voice is coming from the gallowborn,” Moss said as she poked one of the vines.

The root jerked in response.

“Please, Moss, do not agitate them. This is a very delicate operation. If something goes wrong, many people will be injured.”

Moss looked back at me. “How does he know who I am?”

“I know all of you,” the Shepherd answered calmly. “Or at least… almost all of you.”

He paused. “The elemental is new. And I have yet to meet the bloomed you travel with.”

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Peace,” he replied simply. “An end to war. To famine. To suffering. Noble goals, wouldn’t you say?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “You know, I wondered whether you would come. Whether love or fear would win.”

The roots shifted softly around us. “You disappoint me slightly.” A faint chuckle echoed down the stairwell. “But only slightly.”

“Still, you brought me my lost flower.”

The roots nearest Naevira writhed gently.

“You were made for this place, child. You can feel it already, can’t you? The ache. The pull. The need to belong.”

Naevira recoiled and pressed herself hard against me.

“You were never abandoned, child,” he continued softly. “You were unfinished.”

His voice carried something disturbingly close to compassion. “Taken from us before you ever had the chance to know your true family. But we still welcome you with open arms.”

“No,” she whispered as she clung tighter to me, like she was trying to crawl inside my ribs for shelter. “I’m not yours.”

“And you bring the destroyer.” Low laughter rolled through the walls. “How ironic. A creature that destroys Faith standing beside a man destined to drown in it.”

His tone lowered. “You should leave before he kills you all.”

My brow furrowed. That wasn’t manipulation. He believed it.

Elise frowned but said nothing.

“And the shaman, Mirri. You are the glue holding him together. You calm him. Redirect him. Soften the fractures.”

Mirri’s grip tightened on my sleeve.

“Yeah?” she snapped. “That’s what people who love each other do, asshole.”

“He’s exhausting, isn’t he?” the Shepherd asked gently. “So broken. And he needs so much glue.”

The roots creaked overhead.

“And when you finally fail, he will break. And there will be nothing left to put back together.”

“There won’t be anything left of you once I’m done with you, limp-dick,” Mirri shot back.

“Ashlara. The shield.” He laughed softly. “You believe violence can be righteous if directed properly.”

His voice turned cold. “How many people have you killed to protect your peace?”

Ashlara shifted the shield on her arm. “I don’t pretend killing people makes me holy.”

“Serah. The dragon who fears her own fire.” The breathing sound deepened around us. “Do you know what I see when I look at you?” He paused again. “A terrified little girl, still afraid of her daddy, despite everything she’s done.”

Serah’s jaw tightened, but she said nothing.

“Thae. The only creature here disciplined enough to understand necessity. You know sacrifices must be made. You know civilizations are built atop corpses.”

Thae’s red eyes remained fixed on the roots. “Necessary sacrifice and acceptable loss are not the same thing.”

“Nim. You are not afraid of pain.”

A root curled slowly down the wall beside him.

“You are afraid of failing the people who rely on you. That is why you will lose.”

Nim cracked his knuckles once. “Maybe,” he rumbled. “Still gonna try.”

“And Tansy. The killer pretending she isn’t.” Silence stretched for a moment. “You are slower now. Mercy dulls your edge.”

The roots overhead tightened.

“How many of your pack will die because you hesitated? Because you refuse your Faith?”

Tansy looked visibly shaken.

“Vel,” the Shepherd continued. “You already know this cannot end peacefully. You’re calculating casualties already. You understand me better than the others do.”

Vel’s expression never changed.

“Moss.” His tone carried genuine uncertainty for the first time. “You are hungry. So very hungry. And one day you will stop pretending otherwise.”

“Who’s pretending?” Moss asked. She grabbed one of the roots and bit into it.

The gallowborn screamed.

The entire wall convulsed as the roots recoiled violently away from her. Another lashed out to replace it and the mass of vines rippled in visible agitation.

“I told you this is sensitive!” the Shepherd snapped, genuine anger finally bleeding into his voice. “People will be hurt if you continue behaving like this! Innocent people!”

Moss only grinned wider.

“Clo-” the Shepherd began.

“Shall we go?” I interrupted flatly. “I’m getting tired of hearing his voice.”

“Seriously,” Ashlara muttered. “When do we get to punch his mouth shut?”

We started down the stairs.

* * *

We descended several more flights of stairs while the tangled masses of gallowborn vines writhed slowly across the walls around us. Their movement never stopped completely. Tendrils shifted against one another in slow, restless waves, like roots dreaming in the dark.

At the bottom, the stairwell door had been completely removed. In its place, thick bundles of thorned brambles spilled through the opening from the corridor beyond like knotted muscle forced through a wound.

Outside the stairwell, the hallway split left and right again. More gallowborn vines stretched overhead, merging with those from the stairs until the ceiling disappeared beneath dense, twisting masses of roots and thorns.

The whole thing pulsed faintly. Shifted. Breathed. It looked less like plant life and more like staring into a pit full of sleeping snakes.

The corridor itself was immaculate. Fluorescent lights hummed steadily overhead, bathing the polished concrete walls and spotless floor in sterile white light. Unlike the abandoned maintenance tunnels above, this section of the complex was clearly active. Maintained. Lived in.

Naevira pointed right, so right was where we went.

“Do you know how many people begged me for help before I understood the gods would never save us?” the Shepherd asked softly.

“Plenty, I’m sure,” I replied. “Do you know how many people on this planet pray to a god who may or may not exist? People who beg for help that’s never coming? How many live in war zones? Starve? Ask their fellow man for mercy and get a boot in the face instead?”

My voice echoed sharply down the corridor. “There are a hell of a lot more of them here than in Annwn. You’re not a prophet. You’re a con man. This world already has thousands of greedy bastards trying to control people by promising salvation.”

“And yet you bound an elemental to you,” the Shepherd replied calmly. “Tore it from its world to serve you. Enslaved it.”

“No, he didn’t,” Iolite said flatly. “I chose him.”

The blanket of roots overhead went still. For one strange moment it felt like the entire complex had stopped breathing.

“Elementals do not bond willingly,” the Shepherd finally said, his voice quieter now. Lower.

“I did,” she replied.

“You altered her.” His voice dripped with accusation.

My chest tightened painfully. Maybe I had. Probably had. Unconsciously. Unintentionally.

That possibility had haunted me from the beginning. Even knowing Iolite seemed genuinely happy, I couldn’t silence the fear that her feelings weren’t truly hers. That somehow my Faith had reached inside her and rewritten something fundamental. Inserted emotions she was never designed for - implanted affection and twisted it into obligation.

I couldn’t trust her emotions completely. Couldn’t trust myself.

“You continue confusing choice with control,” Iolite replied.

The Shepherd paused. “Why did you choose him?” he asked. “What did he offer you?”

“Kindness,” she answered immediately. “He treated me like a person. He thanked me.”

“You mistake dependency for affection,” he told her.

At the far end of the corridor stood a set of massive industrial fire doors. Thick reinforced steel. No visible handles on our side. Yellow-and-black striped pylons flanked the entrance like warning markers. Near the upper corners of the doors, circular openings had been bored through the stone where thick bundles of gallowborn roots threaded through like enormous living cables.

A harsh electronic buzz shattered the silence. Heavy metallic thumps echoed through the hallway as the locks disengaged. Then the doors slowly swung outward toward us.

I looked at the others, then stepped through first with Nim and Vel close beside me.

Beyond was a massive chamber filled with generators. These were newer than the ancient pumps we’d passed earlier - sleeker, cleaner, far quieter. Their high-pitched whine filled the air beneath the steady breathing sound that still echoed somewhere beyond the walls.

The gallowborn shifted lazily overhead. Calmly.

“You think kindness absolves you, Seth?” the Shepherd asked. “Do you know what happens to starving animals that are fed?”

The roots above us pulsed softly. “They follow the hand that feeds them.” His voice lowered further. “You fear you changed her.”

I said nothing.

“Good,” he continued. “You should.”

The generators hummed around us.

“You alter everyone around you. The elemental. The dragon. The killers. The broken women. Even the lost little flower.”

The breathing in the walls deepened.

“You gather damaged things and remake them.” He let the words settle before continuing. “And they are happier afterward, aren’t they?”

Something twisted in my stomach.

“More loyal. More dependent. More willing to sacrifice for you.” He paused. “How convenient. The shaman wraps herself around your fractures because your Faith rewards her for it.”

Mirri started to protest but he spoke over her without missing a beat.

“Would she have stayed without that pull? Would the warrior still follow you if your approval did not soothe her rage?”

Ashlara’s jaw tightened.

“Or the dragon, if she didn’t believe you could protect her?”

Serah’s face hardened into something cold and furious.

“And Elise…” For the first time, there was something almost gentle in his voice.

“Elise was happiest in her library, wasn’t she? No politics. No expectations. No terrified crowds staring at her like a freak. She could have spent decades among her books. But you couldn’t bear to leave her where she was comfortable. You wanted one more broken toy that you could change into something that would fit in that bottomless hole in your heart.”

The roots shifted slowly overhead.

Elise’s hands tightened at her sides.

“Tell me, Elise,” the Shepherd continued. “When was the last time you were truly alone?”

She froze.

“Seth,” he said quietly, “you call it love because you can’t tolerate abandonment.”

“Fuck you!” Mirri shouted.

Ashlara bristled beside her, shield shifting in her grip. Serah’s expression became a mask of restrained fury. Even the air around Vel seemed sharper somehow.

But the Shepherd continued calmly. “So you pull wounded things close and tell yourself you saved them.”

* * *

Another set of doors waited at the far side of the chamber - the only visible exit. We continued toward them.

“Don’t listen to that fuckin’ shit-for-brains soft-cocked ASSHOLE!” Mirri yelled. “That’s not how any of this works. We’re here because we love you, not because of what you can do for us. And that cockless, cunt-headed TWAT WAFFLE is spewing bullshit that sounds like therapy because he’s never had a single person love him because he’s such a RAG-HUNG, PISS-SOULED DUNG GNAWER!”

“When I find you I’m gonna chop your fuckin’ balls off and feed them to a fuckin’ Weepin’ Gallows, you FUCK KNUCKLE!”

Silence followed her outburst for several long seconds save for the hum of generators and the slow breathing of the walls.

Then the Shepherd sighed softly. “You see?” he asked. His voice carried no anger. No mockery. Only certainty. “She can’t even bear the possibility that I might be right.”

Mirri bristled instantly. “I’ll bear your fuckin’ skull into the floor!”

“But she is terrified,” the Shepherd continued calmly. “Not for herself. For you.”

The roots shifted slowly overhead.

“She needs you stable. Whole. Smiling. Because your pain becomes hers.”

Mirri’s face flushed red with fury. “That’s called love, you manipulative fuck!”

“No,” the Shepherd replied quietly. “That is enmeshment. She is losing the boundary between your suffering and her own.” His voice lowered further. “And part of her likes it.”

Mirri froze.

“She wants to carry your pain because it gives her purpose.”

“Shut. The fuck. Up,” Mirri snarled.

“And you let her,” he continued. “Because being needed quiets the emptiness inside you. You surround yourself with people willing to bleed for you because you cannot survive abandonment a second time.”

I stopped walking.

The others stopped with me.

“That’s enough,” Ashlara growled.

But the Shepherd pressed on relentlessly. “You fear loneliness more than death.”

His voice echoed softly through the chamber. “So you built a family that can’t leave.”