Chapter 44 — Trial of the Root

The roots curled back as the Watcher marched, its glass mask unbroken, its ink and light cloak billowing like the sea.

Yusuf held on tight, Codex gripped. The book pulsed in his fingers, spilling symbols into the air. The faceless child drew back, tied up, eyes blankly staring.

The Watcher uncurled, and the roots obeyed.

They speared upward. Yusuf parried the first by inches, boots scrambling into living web. A second root caught him in the side. He thrashed back with the Codex, and the book erupted white-fire, ink flying in a storm of letters. The power slammed him backward, searing ribs.

It's testing me, Yusuf moaned in agony. Not killing me—trying to destroy me.

The Watcher's voice raged within him, great and massive.

"Archivist. How do you have such power to hold memory? To force recollection on that would rather forget?"

The words burned as caustic as the roots. Yusuf stumbled. Faces contorted before his mind's eye—the ones he had saved, the worlds which had forgotten him the moment he had left. Was he saving them. or burying them?

Another blow, faster. Yusuf slammed the Codex shut, then ripped it open again—pages spinning in a whirlwind. Words burst like spears, piercing the Watcher's flesh. Its shape shone, but it did not topple.

Instead, the dark face wrenched open. Not into a mouth—but into a mirror.

And Yusuf beheld himself.

Sunken eyes, hope-destroying, clawing at remembrance like a drowning man clutches at a shred of driftwood.

The Watcher's voice quavered deeper.

You are not a savior. You are a desperate plunderer. You take what will spoil.

The vision sliced deeper than any root. Yusuf stumbled. His knees gave way, cold sweat exploding forth.

But the Codex throbbed, and he heard another voice—not Watcher's, but his father's.

"You think remembrance will be enough, Yusuf. But memory without love is just a list of names.".

He shut his jaws, dragged himself up. "Maybe I am a thief. Maybe I am a cruel one. But forgetting isn't peace—it's destruction. If hurting them keeps them alive, then I'll do it."

The Codex burst with light. The words unspun like balls of light, wrapping around the roots that exploded out to catch him. Yusuf pulled back with a bellow—and the roots broke in mid-air, stopped short by the very memories reaching out to trap them.

The Watcher's face-mirror imploded. Shards of darkness dropped and disappeared on the roots. Its form contorted, uncoiling into ribbons of darkness that receded into the Tree.

A silence for a moment.

Then the earth under Yusuf's feet dropped away and made a tunnel down into the hollow core of the Tree. A stairway into the heart of the Tree.

The boy finally spoke. "You pushed it to submission. But with each fight, you go deeper in. You know that."

Yusuf snarled, gasping. "Then I'll go as deep as I need to."

And both of them went down into the hollow, where memory marrow was flesh.