Chapter 46. Sometimes our masks. are harder to Remove...

The red stone is duller than the rest.
Cracked, moss-dressed, surrounded by the trampled grass of countless failures.
But the sun still peeks through the Divide’s shifting trees—
a curtain half drawn on the last act of the day.

Vexira stands before it, her arms raised, voice sharp with practice,
hair slightly wild from wind and effort.

“I will make the stone move. I will call its roots to me.
I am Vexira of the Ashen Earth—She Who Buries the Old.”

She speaks like she’s already been made into legend.
A title forged and branded before the spell even cracks.

Froosta stands behind her, clearly anxious.
He plays with his hands. His soft tail twitching with unease.
His breath comes in little clouds despite the warming afternoon.

“You should be careful,” Froosta murmurs.
“You’re trembling again. That’s not how Earth responds. Earth needs—”
“I KNOW,” she snaps.
Then immediately softens. “I know, sorry, sorry. I just—this is it, Froosta. I can feel it.”

Ydoc, seated on a nearby log, casually watching the scene with a blank expression, lifts a brow.
He’s chewing on a stick of something—probably stolen festival candy.

“What’s wrong with Daughter of Pies?”
he mutters just loud enough for Vexira to hear.
“I liked that one. Sounds powerful. Invokes hunger. Delight. Seasonal charm.”

Vexira doesn’t turn around.
But her laugh is cruel and musical.

“Ah yes. The Raven Monster speaks. The beast who hoards fallen stars and pities himself into poetry.”

She twirls her fingers—dramatic, theatrical—and stomps her foot.

“Go write another song, Featherboy.”

Ydoc leans back, arms now folded. A half smile—mocking—curls on his face.
He shrugs again.

“Just saying. Earthen titles are getting a bit... muddy, lately.”

Froosta winces. Both from the pun and the rising tension.

“Maybe we should pause,” Froosta suggests, almost pleading.
“You’re... manic again, Vex. You know what happens when you get like this—”

“I change, Froosta,” she hisses, still not looking at either of them.
“I grow. I burn the part of me that used to beg for crumbs. That girl is dead.
She was buried—and I am the one who buried her.”

Her hands glow faintly now, earth-hue magic threading around her palms.
Dust rises.

“You always say you want me to be better,” she says, this time to the wind.
“Well. Watch.”

She presses her palms to the red stone.

Ydoc does not move.
He is watching with new eyes now.

Froosta grips his own tail tightly.

“Please,” Froosta whispers.
“Just don’t bleed this time.”

The wind picks up—
and the earth does answer—

But in what language?
That... is yet to be seen.

                                             ==--The Spell of Earth and Blood--==

Ydoc leans forward from his log, the sugary twig now forgotten on the ground.
There is a sound—subtle and not meant for mortals.
Something has changed.

Vexira peels back the coat from her shoulders.
The threads cling to her skin as if reluctant to let go,
until they fall and reveal her back and arms:

smooth, white—unearthly,
like someone sculpted her from the bone of a buried angel.
Veins of soft blue pulse beneath the skin—
and coiled along her forearm are runes, ancient and breathing.

They awaken when her palm touches the stone again.
And she whispers.

“O thalamh. O dhiathan nan seann aimsir...”
(Oh Earth. Oh gods of the elder days.)
“Cluinnibh mo ghairm. Faireachdainn mo chridhe...”
(Hear my call. Feel my heart.)

Each word is kissed in Gaelic—
a tongue so old it doesn’t speak to the earth—
it reminds it.

“Lùb. Càraich. Cruthaich. Sgrios...”
(Bend. Repair. Shape. Destroy.)

Froosta barely breathes.
He watches like someone witnessing a friend fall too far from the ledge.
His eyes shimmer with water.

“Deònaich dhomh, mo Mhiann Bàis.”
(Grant me, my Death Wish.)

—

The red stone pulses.
Just once.
Like a heartbeat.

Then the others answer.

The entire ring of the broken stonehedge begins to thrum—
not with magic, but with memory.
The wind weaves through the cracks like an old friend being asked to dance again.

A whistle rises—a long, hollow note like a mourning flute.
And below it: a groan—
so deep and old it sounds like a mountain shifting in its grave.

The soil beneath her hand becomes soft—not in texture,
but in resistance.

It’s allowing her.

It’s listening.

Then—

The runes on her arm begin to glow.
Not golden. Not warm. But a cold, sterile blue—
the color of something frozen just before it shatters.

They begin to translate,
bit by bit—like foreign code trying to speak native Earth.

And something goes wrong.

Steam rises from her skin.
Not from the spell’s failure—
but from overload.

She is overriding her own spirit,
forcing it to conform to the Old Earth’s tongue.
The runes begin to twist, contort, turn black at the edges.

“Vexira,” Froosta breathes, panic rising.
“Stop. You’re—”

But she doesn’t hear him.
She is entranced.
Her eyes wide, lips parted slightly, a faint smile of rapture growing.

“She’s not even in pain,” Ydoc whispers.
“That... that’s not good.”

The stone beneath her palm cracks—
a jagged fracture like lightning across the face of a corpse.

And still she doesn’t stop.

The humming of the stones fades into a soft warmth.
The breath of the wind stills—no longer a warning,
but a kiss.

For a moment, everything in the world slows,
as if the forest, the stone, and the Divide itself... are watching her.
And they approve.

Vexira—kneeling in the center of the broken ring—
slowly lifts her hand from the soil.

And what returns with her…
is no longer a hand.

It is a limb of amber—
clear and golden like honey trapped in time.
Light pours through it, casting golden patterns across her chest, her lips, her cheekbones.

The amber has spread all the way to her shoulder,
with gentle ridges like tree bark flowing over her bone—
not rough, but elegant, like royal jewelry from a season long dead.

And from the crook of her elbow…

grow buds.

Tiny leaves, curled and rich in the hues of Autumn:
copper, rust-red, deep marigold, and crimson.
Each one pulsing faintly with her heartbeat, as if alive.

“Oh gods...” Froosta whispers, peeking out from behind Ydoc.
His fear caught between awe and confusion.
“She’s… she’s doing it.”

Even Ydoc cannot help but take one step closer.
Just one.

Her eyes open fully now.
They shimmer like burnished gold.
And for once—for once—
she is not mocking.

She is radiant.

“I am not her,” she declares softly.
“That name is no longer mine.”

She lifts her amber arm.
The soil beneath the stonehedge responds.
Pebbles, shards, tiny rocks and fragments of old bones begin to float—
not violently, not in chaos—
but with grace.
Like a court of spirits rising to greet a new queen.

They spiral above her hand in gentle orbits,
each one singing, ever so faintly,
as if the Earth was whispering to itself.

“I am reborn.”
“I am the Son of stone. I am... Arthure.”

Ydoc folds his arms. His brow raises again.
But this time...
he smiles.

“What’s wrong with Daughter of Pies?”
he mutters under his breath.

Froosta giggles.

And for a moment,
just a moment—
it feels real.

This is her victory.
Her transformation.
She has become.

And none of them—not even the Divide—knows
what price she just paid.