Reincarnated as an Elf Prince

Finally, she asked, "You saw it, didn't you?"

Lindarion didn't blink.

"I saw too much."

"And yet you told no one."

"I can't."

Nytheris tilted her head, her expression unreadable.

"Because they wouldn't believe?"

"No. Because they shouldn't know."

A faint smile, barely a twitch, touched her lips.

"You are learning."

"I'm not proud of it."

"You shouldn't be," she said. "But it's necessary."

Lindarion let his eyes close for a moment. The Garden pulsed gently beneath him, soft warmth in the moss, a breeze that carried no scent but still cooled his brow.

He finally asked the question that had sat in his chest since the glyph chamber.

"What's really in here, Nytheris?"

Her expression didn't shift.

"You've seen the outer threads."

"Not what I asked."

"No," she agreed.

Then she raised her hand, and the ground before them opened.

Not violently.

Not with magic.

Just movement.

As though the moss had stepped aside.

Beneath it, a vein of black crystal.

Perfect. Silent. Seamless.

And beneath that—

a pulse.

One slow throb. Like the beat of something immense and asleep.

Lindarion leaned slightly forward.

"It's alive now," he whispered.

"Yes."

"For how long?"

Nytheris didn't answer right away.

Her gaze had dropped, not to the crystal, but beyond it. Somewhere her voice couldn't reach. When she finally spoke, her words came slowly. Not because she was hesitant.

Because she was choosing them with the same precision one might use when disarming a trap.

"No one remembers," she said softly. "Not truly. Not even me."

Lindarion blinked. "You've guarded it for thousands of years."

"I've watched it for thousands of years," she corrected. "But it was already here. Buried before the first city. Before the First Crown. Before the words we use for danger were even invented."

She looked at him again now, sharp as winter stone.

"I didn't build this vault."

The chill in his chest deepened.

"You mean Eldorath?"

"I mean the entire continent," she said. "We grew a kingdom around the wound."

The pulse beneath the crystal beat again, slow, patient.

Lindarion stepped closer to the edge of the moss-ringed opening. The dark mineral gleamed faintly with each throb of energy.

"And this," he said, "is the core, right?"

"It is the lock," Nytheris said. "Not the key."

He swallowed. "What's the key, then?"

She gave a faint, humorless smile. "You are."

Silence.

Total.

Even the birdsong from earlier had vanished.

Lindarion's hand curled unconsciously. "I didn't open anything."

"Not yet," Nytheris said. "But the outer runes—the runes you touched—they're responding to you. That's how it begins."

He stayed quiet. Let her keep talking.

"You have too many affinities," she said. "No normal being should be able to touch darkness and light and time without tearing their soul apart."

"But I haven't."

"Exactly."

Lindarion looked at the crystal again. "Then this thing—whatever it is—it's reacting to me."

"No," Nytheris said gently. "It's waiting for you."

He didn't move.

Didn't breathe, for a second.

She stepped closer, slowly. Her wings flicked once, shifting the air like a ripple over still water.

"I don't know what it wants," she said. "But I know this: if it wakes… this garden dies. This city falls. And every soul in Eldorath will feel the echo."

Lindarion stared down into the black vein beneath them.

It pulsed again.

Almost… softly now.

Like it knew they were speaking.

He looked back up.

Nytheris's face was calm. Unmoving.

But her hands trembled.

Not much. Just enough.

He asked the final question, voice low.

"If you've been watching this for so long… why not warn anyone?"

"I have," she said.

"And?"

"No one listened."

Lindarion let that sit.

Then he exhaled. "They'll listen to me."

"Because you're the prince?"

"No," he said. "Because I don't care if they don't."

Nytheris blinked. And for the first time, truly the first, she smiled.

Not a twitch. Not a courtesy.

Something real.

Small. Sad. But real.

"You might survive this after all."

Lindarion turned from the crystal.

His steps felt heavier now.

Not from dread.

From purpose.

He didn't look back when the moss closed behind him.

Because he knew it would still be pulsing.

Waiting.

Beneath his kingdom's heart.

—

He took four steps before stopping.

The door hadn't sealed yet. The Garden hadn't turned him away.

But something else had pressed against his spine.

A question.

A whisper.

He turned his head back to the still-open moss-ringed hollow in the ground.

Nytheris stood where she had been, her posture unchanged, her eyes on the roots overhead now. But he knew she felt the same thing. Because she didn't speak.

She waited.

Lindarion stepped back to the edge.

The crystal below pulsed again.

Slower.

But deeper.

Each throb hummed beneath his boots, under the soil, through the roots, through the marrow of the Garden. It wasn't magic. It wasn't aura. It was presence.

He crouched, lowering his palm just above the surface of the moss without touching it.

Closer.

He leaned in, not recklessly, not fast.

Just close enough that the breath he didn't know he'd been holding caught at the top of his throat.

'I could go further.'

The thought wasn't his.

It didn't come like words. It came like permission.

Like a door left ajar in a place with no doors.

His hand hovered.

Inches from the black vein.

The surface looked solid.

But his instincts, his deepest sense of danger, told him it wasn't.

It was thin.

Too thin.

Like glass over a well with no bottom.

He moved his hand lower—

"Don't," Nytheris said.

Not shouted.

Not commanded.

Just stated.

And still—

It landed like a blade drawn quietly between two ribs.

He stopped.

She didn't turn.

"Even touching the crystal would shift the Core's attention."

"I wasn't going to."

"You were."

He didn't deny it.

Because she was right.

Lindarion stared at the surface one more time. The reflections were wrong. The pulse was slower now, but more interested.

Whatever lay below hadn't stirred.

But it had noticed.

He rose slowly.

His body felt heavier now, like the Garden itself was holding him in place a second longer. Like it was saying: remember what you just considered.

He turned.

And this time, he didn't stop.