God’s Tree

The air was bitter.

It wasn't just cold anymore—it was a deathless freeze, one that seeped into the bones and refused to let go.

Even Thae'Zirak's massive frame moved more slowly now, wings laboring against the sharp, glacial winds that coiled in from the north like ghostly serpents.

The sky had lost all warmth. It was a ceiling of pale iron, heavy and endless, with no sun and no moon—only light without source, dull and indifferent.

Below them, the frozen wasteland stretched on, cracked and broken like the shattered shell of a world long dead.

And at the center of it all—the Hollow Bastion.

It was no fortress in the traditional sense. No battlements, no gates, no signs of war.

It was a monolith of ice and stone, carved directly from the bones of a colossal glacier.

The structure spiraled upward, not in straight lines, but in curving, unnatural arcs—like a great tower pulled upward by invisible threads, frozen mid-rise.

Its walls were a patchwork of black ice and gray stone, and along their surfaces, something moved—not creatures, but carvings.

Runes that slithered and reformed, glowing faintly with necrotic green light. They bled down the spires like rivers of ancient thought, looping endlessly.

Even Kaelred, who had never stopped talking for more than ten minutes in his life, had gone silent.

Argolaith stood at the front of Thae'Zirak's shoulders, cloak snapping in the frigid wind, golden eyes locked on the massive structure ahead.

"It doesn't look alive," he murmured.

"It isn't," Malakar said behind him, voice low and distant. "But it isn't dead, either."

Kaelred leaned over the side, watching as the frozen spires below passed beneath them like teeth in a shattered jaw. "It looks like a tomb for something that refused to stay buried."

Thae'Zirak said nothing. His silence was more telling than any words.

As they neared the bastion, the Hollowed Ones reappeared.

Dozens. Hundreds.

Lining the ledges, the outer rings, standing in perfect silence—tall, emaciated figures wrapped in cloaks of ice, their bodies unnaturally still, heads raised as if they could see straight through the cold wind.

They made no move to attack.

No sound.

Only watched.

And then, the great structure shifted.

Not in a way they could see—but in a way they could feel.

A ripple of pressure passed through the air, like the world exhaling after holding its breath for centuries.

And before them, a section of the tower unspooled, black stone curling back like a flower opening in slow motion. A massive entryway appeared, yawning open in silence.

The inside was pitch black.

Thae'Zirak angled downward.

His wings flared, snow and dust spiraling around him as he landed at the base of the opening. The entrance was large enough to allow even him to pass without bending his head.

No guards waited.

No defenses rose.

Only darkness.

Kaelred dropped down from Thae'Zirak's back and landed lightly, his boots crunching into brittle frost. "I really, really hate this place."

Argolaith dismounted next, planting his feet and facing the open maw of the bastion. He could feel it now—a presence behind the stone, deep within.

Not malice.

Not anger.

Something worse.

Expectation.

Malakar stepped forward. "He knows we're here."

Thae'Zirak did not move. "He has always known."

They walked forward.

The stone beneath their boots felt alive—not warm, but aware. With each step, the runes beneath their feet flickered, like they were reacting to Argolaith's presence.

The inside of the bastion was vast, cavernous.

A massive corridor stretched out before them, lined with giant statues—each one of a different being, each clad in robes, armor, bone, or none at all. Some were human. Others not. A few were entirely alien in shape.

Each statue had one thing in common: a collar at its neck, etched with the same binding runes that Thae'Zirak wore.

Kaelred glanced between them. "These were all his creations?"

Thae'Zirak answered without turning. "Failures. Prototypes. Soldiers. Friends."

The silence in the corridor was complete—no echoes, no wind. Just the soft sound of boots against ice.

Then the air thickened.

They reached the end of the hall.

A massive circular chamber opened before them.

At its center was a throne—not carved, not built, but seemingly formed by the bones of the structure itself, rising up like vertebrae twisted into a seat.

And seated upon it—

Was a figure.

Tall. Robed in layered cloth and plated bone, his skeletal hands resting on the arms of the throne. His face was shrouded by a hood, but two pale green flames burned in place of eyes, steady and unmoving.

Zolgrich.

The First Lich.

He didn't move.

He didn't speak.

But the very space trembled with his awareness.

Argolaith stepped forward, pulse steady.

Kaelred muttered, "This is it. We're gonna die here. Definitely gonna die."

Zolgrich raised his hand. Not fast. Not threatening.

And then—he spoke.

His voice was like echoes through a grave, deep and hollow, as if it passed through ten thousand years of silence to reach them.

"You carry the blood of the second tree."

Argolaith answered without hesitation. "Yes."

Zolgrich leaned forward. The flames in his eyes brightened.

"Then we have much to discuss."

The cold within the Hollow Bastion was not from wind or weather. It came from the structure itself, from its bones of ice and its walls of dead stone.

The air in the great throne chamber was still, yet pulsing faintly with ancient magic.

Zolgrich sat motionless on his throne of bone, his robed form draped in silence, only the flickering green flame in his eyes marking him as anything more than another statue in this hollow place.

Before him, Argolaith stood tall, unmoved by the weight of the ancient lich's gaze.

Kaelred hovered a few steps back, tense but watching, while Malakar remained still and unreadable beside him.

Thae'Zirak stood in the shadows of the chamber, silent and watchful, his head bowed low in the presence of his creator.

Zolgrich leaned forward slightly, and the walls seemed to listen.

"You seek to understand what you carry. Good. Because understanding is the only thing that may keep you from becoming something unrecognizable."

His voice echoed softly, like wind stirring ashes.

"A long time ago, before empires were born, before the gods paid attention to this world, there was a man."

Zolgrich lifted one hand and slowly closed his skeletal fingers. As he spoke, the center of the room shimmered, a ripple forming in the air like the surface of disturbed water.

From it, a scene emerged.

A forest. Not twisted or sacred, but ordinary, sunlit and green. Birds sang. Leaves danced in the wind. And within it, a man with an axe stood before a tree.

He wasn't a warrior. Nor a priest. Just a woodsman.

"This man heard a whisper in the back of his mind," Zolgrich said. "He did not understand it, nor did he question it. He believed it to be memory, or thought, or instinct. But the whisper came from the tree."

The scene showed the man striking the trunk with his axe.

Once.

Twice.

A third time—

And the tree bled.

Not sap. Not water.

But a slow drop of emerald light.

It pulsed like a heartbeat.

Kaelred's eyes widened slightly, watching the memory unfold.

Zolgrich's voice did not waver. "He was the first to see it. The first to realize that something buried deep beneath the world had changed. He didn't understand it… but he felt it. Something ancient had responded to him."

The vision faded.

Zolgrich rested his hand once more on the throne.

"He would never know the truth. But that drop—what would one day be called lifeblood—was the first to surface in our world."