The scar across the hillside resembled an infected wound.

Ryelle crouched beside a massive oak whose bark had turned the color of old bone, pressing her palm against its trunk. The tree's heartbeat felt sluggish, erratic—like an old man's pulse when fever burns too high. Beneath her fingers, the wood yielded with the consistency of wet clay, though it looked solid enough to the eye.

"This one's been dead for days," she said, rising and wiping tree-sap from her palm. The substance clung like half-dried blood, leaving russet stains that wouldn't brush away. "Still standing, still putting out leaves, but dead."

It wasn't the only afflicted tree. Everywhere she looked, signs of corruption stood out amidst the verdant woodlands. Fir boughs drooped beneath needles turning black at their points. Scrub brush grew in grotesque profusion where roots bulged beneath the earth, unnaturally swollen as if fed on poisoned blood.

She had expected to find more subtle signs of the corruption Mesyori had described. Subtle was not the word she'd use here.

Gwynelle chittered uneasily, her talons scratching the moss-matted soil. "Groundsick," she murmured. "Trees trying to live but something in deep places eating heart away."

"That's one way to put it." Ryelle brushed her fingers against the afflicted bark once more. "Mesyori was right about the draining."

Liselotte perched on a branch that should have bent under her weight but barely swayed. Her crimson eyes surveyed the scarred landscape with an intensity that belied her outward calm. "Wrong goes deeper than surface damage."

She was right, Ryelle realized. The visible signs of sickness were just indications of a more profound infection. Something had taken root below the soil and the stone itself, something that gnawed away at bedrock and drained life force from anything with roots.

She pressed her palm against the birch's trunk and reached for the nature-gift Ebonheim had woven into her essence. The power flowed sluggishly, like honey poured in winter, but eventually connection sparked between divine flesh and living wood.

The tree's pain struck her like a physical blow.

Not the sharp agony of blade or fire, but the slow horror of something essential being siphoned away drop by drop. The birch remembered vibrant summers, winters survived through stored strength, springs that brought renewal. Now those memories felt distant as half-forgotten dreams, overlaid by newer sensations that belonged to no living thing.

Underground. Deep roots touch darkness that drinks.

Images flickered through the connection: soil that moved with purpose, spaces carved where earth should be solid, the taste of metal and sulfur seeping upward through groundwater. And threading through it all, the sense of something vast and patient feeding on the forest's life-essence.

Ryelle jerked her hand away, severing the link before the tree's despair could drag her deeper.

"The corruption comes from below," she said, flexing fingers that still tingled with borrowed anguish. "Something's built beneath the root-layer, and it's..." She searched for words that could capture the violation she'd felt. "Drinking the forest's soul."

Liselotte's wings ruffled. "Harpies do not hunt what hides in stone belly. Is why we asked you to see."

They moved deeper into the affected area, finding other trees marked by the insidious scourge. The grass, too, bore signs of blight, patches of brittle stalks among lush growth. Rocks protruded from the soil, strangely smoothed and rounded as if polished by ceaseless rain.

Small wonder the prey animals had fled.

She closed her eyes and reached deeper, calling on gifts Ebonheim had woven into her essence during those first moments of creation. The forest's network of roots and fungal threads opened to her senses like a vast web of whispered conversations. Most trees murmured their usual concerns—water, sunlight, the slow dance of seasons. But here, the voices carried undertones of panic and confusion.

Hungry-dark-below, came the message from a cluster of birches whose leaves rustled without any wind to stir them. Something-gnaws-foundation-bones.

Deeper-wrong-spreads, whispered the dying oak beneath her hands. Sweet-earth-turns-bitter.

Ryelle's enhanced senses followed the root-whispers deeper, mapping connections between trees that showed corruption. The pattern emerged like ink spreading through water—not random infection, but deliberate contamination radiating from specific points underground.

"They're being poisoned from below," she said, opening her eyes to find Liselotte watching her with keen interest. "Something's introduced toxins into the root network. But it's not natural decay—it's too systematic, too... purposeful."

"Show me."

Ryelle pressed both palms against the diseased oak's trunk and reached out with senses that belonged neither to goddess nor dragon, but to something Ebonheim had crafted specifically for protecting growing things. The tree's pain flooded through her—not just physical damage, but a deeper wrongness that made her teeth ache.

Underground, she felt them.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Tunnels. Dozens of them, threading through the earth like the burrows of some massive colony of insects. But these weren't natural caves worn by water and time. Their walls felt too straight, too precise to be the work of chance and erosion.

And along those unnatural walls, the trees' roots pressed, drinking up taint and corruption.

The taste of metal and sulfur lingered in her mouth after breaking the connection.

"There." She pointed toward a depression in the forest floor where ferns had withered into brown tangles. "One access point, at least."

Liselotte dropped from her perch with barely a whisper of displaced air. "How many tunnels?"

"Hard to tell. The root network only goes so deep, but I'm sensing at least a dozen major passages. Maybe more." Ryelle wiped sweat from her forehead, the effort of extended plant-communication leaving her with a headache that pulsed behind her eyes. "Whatever's down there has been working for weeks to establish this much infrastructure."

They made their way through undergrowth that crunched underfoot with unnatural brittleness. Leaves that should have been green and supple crumbled at their passage, releasing clouds of spores that made Ryelle's nose burn. Even the air felt different here—thicker, more humid, with an underlying scent that reminded her of places where meat had been left too long in the sun.

The entrance revealed itself as a hole in the earth large enough for two people to walk abreast, surrounded by piles of excavated soil.

Liselotte approached with caution, her eyes scanning the shadows as if expecting an attack. But Ryelle felt no danger other than the pervasive wrongness beneath their feet.

The tunnel sloped down at a steep angle, curving out of sight a dozen paces below the surface.

But it wasn't the tunnel itself that captured her attention. It was the smell that made Ryelle's dragon-senses recoil.

Death. Not the clean ending that came with winter's sleep, but rot mixed with something metallic and sharp. And underneath it all, a familiar scent that set her teeth on edge.

"Asura," Ryelle said, looking over at Liselotte. "I've come across this stink before. There's definitely Asuras involved in this."

Gwynelle tensed. "Asura?"

"Demons. Think of them as nasty things from another plane." Ryelle turned away from the tunnel's entrance and paced a slow circuit around it.

She searched through her shared memories with Ebonheim. The only Asura who could burrow, based on what information the Akashic System had provided, were Bhutava—Asuras with subterranean expertise. Then those flying creatures with six eyes Mesyori and her party encountered... most likely Shadaksha.

"How many types of Asura are we dealing with?" Liselotte's voice carried the flat tone she used when expecting a straightforward answer.

Ryelle knelt beside the tunnel mouth, pressing her palm against the excavated earth. The soil felt wrong—too warm, too soft, with a greasy texture that clung to her skin. "At least two varieties. The diggers and the fliers your scouts encountered."

"Numbers?"

"Can't tell from here." She wiped her hand on her leggings, but the oily sensation lingered. "The tunnel network is extensive, though. This isn't a scouting party or a small raid. I'd say there could be dozens, maybe more."

Gwynelle's talons worried the moss underfoot. "What they want with harpy lands?"

Ryelle stood, brushing dirt from her knees. The question gnawed at her, too. If the Asuras were after something specific, she had no idea what it might be.

They had already tried corrupting the Order of the Burning Shield at the Old Drakon Castle, only to be chased off. If this was also related to Xellos's schemes... just what was their end game here? Invasion? Maybe.

But why? Were there resources here they valued? Not just the forests, maybe, but the floating islands that dotted the landscape? The ancient ruins?

She shook her head. She couldn't rule anything out.

"I wish I knew," she finally admitted. "But what's clear is that they aren't here for a friendly visit. And whatever they're up to, it's not going to be good for you."

Liselotte gazed down at the yawning hole in the ground. "Harpies rule Sky. Do not burrow like moles or claw soil like dogs. But these Asuras..." She spat the word. "These Asuras do not respect domain."

Gwynelle chittered agreement, her feathers fluffing in anger. "Our lands nae theirs."

Ryelle couldn't fault their outrage. They were apex predators accustomed to being at the top of the food chain. Dealing with an enemy they couldn't find and couldn't reach within their domain? It had to feel like some violation, not to mention dangerous. Just how dangerous was impossible to tell—at least not without taking a closer look.

The Harpy Queen beat her wings once, stirring up a cloud of dry, dead leaves. "Who leads these Asuras?"

The most likely answer was Xellos. But Ryelle didn't have confirmation. The Asuras could be under the control of a more powerful demon or acting independently for some inscrutable reason. She just didn't know.

But even if she was certain, telling Liselotte would only drive her to seek out a confrontation with Xellos directly or retaliate by attacking Corinth. Neither option would help avoid war.

"Nothing I could point to," she replied, sidestepping the question.

Liselotte's eyes narrowed into slits as she watched Ryelle's movements.

Ryelle kept her expression carefully neutral.

After a tense moment, Liselotte shrugged and paced a slow circle around the entrance, pausing now and again to examine the soil or peer into the black depths beneath the trees. "Harpies cannot hunt in stone burrows. Too narrow, no sky, wings useless."

"You're asking me to go down there."

"Can reach where we cannot."

Ryelle gazed down at the shadows and imagined what might wait below. Her own abilities paled in comparison to Liselotte's in open combat, but that wouldn't make a difference in tunnels too cramped for wings and talons. Hand-to-hand, face-to-face, that was a fight she knew how to win.

Especially when fire and fury were all it took to even the odds.

She gave a short, sharp nod. "I'll scout the tunnels, see what I can learn. Should be back in a couple of hours."

"One hour." Liselotte ruffled her feathers, the first hint of unease she had shown so far. "Any longer and we assume the worst. Gwynelle, fly back and tell the others to prepare for battle."

The young harpy nodded eagerly, already spreading her wings for takeoff. "What if flying-things come while gone? Shadows-with-eyes?"

"Kill on sight."

Gwynelle looked surprised, then delighted. Ryelle couldn't help but smile at her enthusiasm. For a hunter, permission to unleash aggression must feel like an early birthday.

With a whoop of joy, Gwynelle shot skyward, her wingbeats fading into the clamor of wind and forest sounds as Ryelle turned her attention to the tunnel entrance.

"Well," she muttered, reaching for the dragonfire that flickered in her core. "Here I go."

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