A dry, humorless laugh escaped Rhys, rattling in her chest. Days bled into one another, indistinguishable. Everything felt precarious, yet somehow, it had to be alright. Always. She had long since stopped marking time, let alone remembering fleeting celebrations like birthdays. Elara, her eyes scanning Rhys’s small, meticulously ordered quarters, seemed more interested in its sparse functionality than anything else. “A place to simply exist,” Elara murmured, her gaze lingering on the worn tools, the glint of polished glass beakers. She had once, with a critical air, assessed the entire Enclave’s resource flow, noting a precise ‘sufficiency’ in her mental ledger. “Still just...sleeping?” Elara asked, breaking the silence, her voice a low murmur. “In his cot,” Rhys affirmed, stirring a half-cold mug of ‘leaf-tea’ – dried Wastes flora steeped in recycled water. “No movement since. Not like before.” “The… wandering,” Elara clarified, a slight wrinkle marring her brow. “Like a shadow in the night?” “Exactly.” Rhys’s grip tightened on the mug. She remembered the sheer terror, the way her heart had slammed against her ribs the last time she’d found Caspian, not in his bed, but standing, a silent, unnerving sentinel in the darkest corner of her workshop. A phantom chill traced her spine. “Such a strange man,” Elara mused, a touch of morbid curiosity in her voice. Her hand drifted, almost imperceptibly, towards the door of the small, partitioned space where Caspian lay. Rhys’s arm shot out, a silent, unyielding barrier. “Best not to disturb him,” Rhys warned, her voice tight. “He won’t stir,” Elara insisted, drawing back with a shrug. “I’ve tried. He’s deep under.” Still, Rhys refused to budge, her gaze fixed on the closed door, a silent plea in her eyes. The relative quiet, the fragile peace that had settled over her days since Caspian’s descent into slumber, felt like a stolen moment. She prayed, a desperate, silent plea: *Please, just stay like this.* Elara’s voice cut through the heavy air. “Heard a new decree. From the Council. Remember that old quarry site, north of Pyrite? They’re turning it into a waste processing gulch. Something about optimizing ash-flow from the furnaces.” She paused, her eyes narrowing on Rhys. “You didn’t…” Rhys scratched her cheek, a nervous habit. Elara’s eyes widened. “You filed another complaint, didn’t you? About the groundwater tables? The run-off?” “It’s a danger,” Rhys began, her voice low. “By the Mother!” Elara’s fist slammed lightly on the worn workbench. “Are you trying to undermine everything? Our pacts with the Guilds? Our standing? Don’t you remember what you swore, Rhys? Our survival depends on keeping the peace, managing these fragile alliances!” Rhys left the workshop without a word, Elara’s frustrated shouts echoing behind her. *“Do you even think sometimes—?!”* Rhys walked, the harsh Pyrite sun beating down, trying to suppress a wry, bitter smile. It wasn’t just the Council, or the various Guildmasters who treated the Wastes as a dumping ground, a mere resource to be bled dry. A world that valued profits and 'efficiency' above the slow, gasping health of the land would never change, she knew. But that didn’t mean she had to be silent. A sudden shiver snaked down her spine. *“Soon, Rhys Kaelen. So very soon.”* The voice in her mind, not Elara’s, but one far colder, made her quicken her pace. A week, she realized with a jolt, a full week since Caspian had truly been awake. He might have expected this. The chill was not from the wind. --- The bitter taste of something acrid, a metallic tang on her tongue, made Rhys clench her jaw. She abruptly pulled her goggles down from her forehead, her expression grim. This wasn't right. Not at all. She strode purposefully towards the main thoroughfare, towards the fortified gate leading to the Ashfall Wastes, where the Foraging Guild’s processing depot stood. “Guildmaster Borin!” Borin, a burly man whose face was permanently creased with suspicion, scowled as soon as he saw her. “Not you again. Leave, chirurgeon.” “Are you trying to poison them?” Rhys demanded, her voice cutting through the depot’s clamor. “I’ve no idea what you mean.” Borin roughly pushed past her, heading towards a stack of freshly harvested desert-root. Rhys blocked his path, her hand on the metal frame of the depot gate. “Last cycle, you mixed caustic ash into the water reclamation unit, citing ‘cost savings’—” “If you continue to interfere with Guild operations, I’ll have to call the Overseers,” Borin growled, his face reddening. His eyes darted to the few foragers gathered nearby, their murmurs growing louder. “This time, you used a heavy solvent, didn’t you?” Rhys’s memory of the metallic taste was sharp. “Near the Glow-Moss fields. I tasted it. In the water run-off.” The forager’s murmurs swelled. Borin’s face turned an ugly shade of puce. *This meddlesome woman. Always ruining things.* “I thought it odd how quickly the Glow-Moss started to shrivel.” Rhys’s gaze moved to a dying patch near the edge of the depot, its usual faint luminescence now a sickly, fading green. “I never asked for your assessment! This is not your concern!” Borin shoved Rhys, a hand on her shoulder, pushing her out of the depot’s immediate perimeter. He narrowed his eyes, but Rhys saw the frantic twitch in his jaw, the almost imperceptible tremor in his hands. Worry, thinly veiled. “Your last attempt to establish a 'community clinic' in the Wastes went bust because you kept poking your nose where it didn’t belong, not minding your own business. Remember that?” Borin spat on the ash-dusted ground. “I remember,” Rhys said, her voice flat. “If you remember, then stop doing the same thing!” Everyone in Pyrite knew Rhys Kaelen, the ‘ash-witch’ chirurgeon, her reputation for both life-saving cures and uncomfortable truths preceding her. Many residents were unnerved by her quiet intensity, the way her calm face belied a relentless will. This medic, people muttered, didn’t care for profit or politics, only for what she deemed ‘right’ – rushing to save a dying resource, treating the land as if it were a patient. People thought her insane. “Just back off, alright?” Borin’s voice dropped to a harsh whisper. “I have the right to do what I need to do to meet our quotas, to ensure our survival. This patch, this land, it’s ours to manage! I will never call your ‘clinic’ for advice! Stop being a nuisance and go! You’re crossing a line!” “Then who will?” Rhys countered, her voice trembling, though she tried to keep it steady. “What?” “If not me, then who helps that Glow-Moss patch?” Rhys pointed a finger at the dying luminescence. “I know you’re trying to clear it, Borin. To make way for a faster path to the new processing gulch. To cut costs on fuel and transport, even if it means poisoning the Wastes.” Borin’s face stiffened, all pretense of anger giving way to a naked fear. “Every morning, you spray that solvent. You let the caustic run-off drain directly into the soil where it grows. You’re killing it,” Rhys continued, her voice rising now, raw with emotion. “What will happen to us, to our children, if I stop caring? Even if they appear no different from barren dirt to your eyes, these are living things! Once they have put down their roots, they deserve to live!” The uneasy feelings that had repressed Rhys since the morning, since Caspian’s silent slumber, led to an emotional outburst. “Who are you to kill these things? What gives you that right? What have they ever done to you?” A wave of nausea washed over her. It reminded her of the small, trembling hand that had once held a child’s crude drawing, of the stack of 'resource reports' she had once filed, each one dismissed, each one a death sentence. “It’s not fair for them to be used and thrown away like that.” Borin, initially furious at her childish stubbornness, found his breath catching in his throat as he met her blazing, red-rimmed eyes. Her intensity was unnerving. “Do you want to hear something truly terrifying, Borin?” Rhys’s voice was low, almost a whisper, but it cut through the din of the depot. “Long after you’re gone, long after Pyrite is reclaimed by ash and dust, the Glow-Moss will find a way to grow on.” *They will endure for centuries*, she thought, clenching her teeth, holding back the burning tears. *They always do.*

Chapter 18: Roots in Ash