The peal of thunder split the sky.

Ka'handre, clad only in robes to his waist, sat cross-legged in the cradle of a towering rubber tree.

The night was thick and endless. Wind howled, whispering secrets through the whisper-grass that bordered his village clearing far below. Yet he sat in stillness—body present in the maelstrom, mind elsewhere.

The light of the Two Moons was obscured.

A fell omen.

Ka'handre tried to dismiss it as cloud and chance, but the knot in his gut remained. Eight days before the Tournaments. Eight days before his fate would be decided: rise in victory, become a man, serve his village—

—or fall with honor and feed the forest, as many had before him.

He heard it then: the cry of an infant, carried on the spring breeze.

Ka'handre closed his eyes, letting the sound pierce him.

He thought of his own childhood, soon to end. No more racing friends through vine-laced canopies, hunting Jungle Dragons. No more naps in leaf-boughs while rain pattered on Hooba leaves. Soon he would be a man. Soon he would make war. Take a wife. Have children—who would one day run the same courses, sing the same songs, and feed the same forest.

As he had.

As he would.

He mourned this life briefly, holding vigil for the boy he still was. One way or another, that boy would soon die.

The rubber tree creaked beneath him, its wide trunk slick with mist. Ka'handre pressed his forehead to the bark, breathing sap and rain.

He did not pray for victory.

He did not beg for survival.

He whispered instead the oldest promise of his people:

"If I rise, I will rise as your son.

If I fall, I will fall as your seed.

Either way, I will feed you, Mother."

The jungle heard. It always did. And somewhere beyond the clearing, past the edge of memory, the Thunderbrush stirred.

Eight days.

The number itself was sacred—turned sideways, infinity. Whether he fell and fed the earth or stood at the end scarred and reborn, he would go on.

But how would he spend them?

Tonight was spoken for. Tonight Ka'handre would sleep beneath the Hooba tree—an old sentinel where many had come to dream, and many had been changed.

He leapt from branch to branch, circling the outskirts of the village with the grace of one born to the canopy.

Lanbugs hung from windows, their amber glow spilling into the mist. Root-wrought huts nestled together in the clearing, breathing softly.

He heard music—laughter, song, the heartbeat of his people.

But it wasn’t only the villagers. The Thunderbrush sang too: insects, groaning trees, whispering vines. A symphony, endless and patient.

Ka'handre perched on a branch and closed his eyes, letting the song wash over him. Tonight, he was not apart from the jungle. Tonight, he was part of its dreaming.

At last he reached the cradle of the Hooba tree’s branches, woven like ancient fingers. He laid down his satchel—woven from the black hair-fibers of the Hanba tree, a sentinel feared for drinking sorrow and whispering drought.

Inside were his treasures: dried Paryus leaves, a stencil-bark pen, a Scrivener’s Vine ink reservoir. The elders had named him Writer after glimpsing his gift with runes, and he cherished the duty. Words pulled through him like a current.

He unfurled the leaves and breathed their scent. Home.

Settling into the cradle, he dipped pen into ink and began to write:

“It sleeps in the dew-covered grass,

Enshrouded by shadow, no moonlight with clouds overcast.

Ready for one, ready for all,

It claims each life, and renders them raw.

A thousand forgotten names, a thousand stars and more,

Entropic decay laps like an ocean at a shore—

A shore with no meaning, a war without time,

It ebbs and it flows, it leaves none behind.

I give to it one day, when my time is done,

My childhood, my wanderings, my life as a son.”

He signed his rune: a wheel turned by a hand. The mark of his fate.

Whispering the poem into the boughs, he felt the Hooba shiver in reply. Acknowledgement.

Tonight, he would rest. Tonight, the Hooba tree would dream of him.

But rest in the jungle did not mean sleep—at least, not for the soul.

Ka'handre breathed deeply, preparing for the ritual before the Verdant Dream—the place between waking and slumber, where a soul wandered unmoored. Even here, the Thunderbrush watched. Even here, the Dream judged.

He closed his eyes.

The Vigil of Whispers had begun.

Ka'handre’s body lay cradled in the Hooba tree. His soul slipped free. It was time to walk the Verdant Dream.

A massive root stretched into a long tunnel. Walls curved and pulsed as if alive, branching into smaller doorways of woven wood and shadow. Mist carpeted the floor, flowing with intention.

It beckoned him onward.

The hall narrowed until only one could pass. Plain doors lined the sides—unguarded, unlocked, portals to anywhere. The mist curled toward a doorway ahead.

From beyond came drums. Heavy. Measured. Beating in time with his heart.

Ka'handre reached for the handle—

When the door behind burst open.

Black roots writhed into the hall, blocking his path. The drums fell silent. Only one gap remained—a narrow mouth framed by twisting vines, pulsing with whispers:

"Come. Step into the circus. See what awaits."

Ka'handre swallowed and entered.

Each barefoot step carried him deeper into the Dream, closer to the vision waiting beyond the mist. He feared not death, but dying outside the Thunderbrush. Would he still feed the Mother Jungle? Or be lost forever?

Forward was the only way.

Small red eyes blossomed along the roots, blinking open, watching. The Dream was awake. Waiting.

Ka'handre stepped through.

He emerged into cold mountain air. The doorway clung to a shattered tree, roots grasping stone like broken fingers. Mist curled around his ankles.

Before him stretched the Thunderbrush.

And in the distance, the Life Tree had withered. Its canopy sagged, trunk cracked, black sap bleeding into the earth.

The jungle was dying. The Dream was sick. And he was meant to see it first.

Above, the clouds parted. The Two Moons hung heavy—one blue, one red.

Had it always been red?

Ka'handre searched memory, but the color blurred like a smudged painting. Had the Moon bled all along—or changed night by night, unnoticed?

The mist rose, shaping visions. The Life Tree. Proud, sustaining. Tendrils crept across the ground, devouring. They wrapped the Tree’s base, strangling it until it withered. With it, the Thunderbrush died.

The vision dissolved. The weight of knowledge pressed cold upon Ka'handre: all things end.

Above, the red Moon’s gaze sharpened, spilling crimson across the mountainside. Shadows breathed like wounded beasts.

The ground trembled. A crack split open. From it lashed a tendril black as starless night, coiling around his ankle.

Ka'handre gasped. No sound came. The tendril yanked him downward into mist and rot.

The last thing he saw before the Dream swallowed him whole was the red Moon, unblinking, unmoved.