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“So I’m part plant now? Because that’s definitely not in my job description. Are we talking temporary magical makeover or permanent career change?”

The warrior steps close, ignoring personal space entirely. Without hesitation, her ancient fingers press against the brightest thorn patterns on my forearm.

Contact detonates through my system like a bomb.

Every cell in my body screams welcome home after lifelong exile.

Power flows between us, wild and untamed. Earth recognizing its own blood. My nervous system lights up like a live wire, connections forming that bypass conscious thought.

“Your heritage breaks through human suppression,” she states matter-of-factly. “This wasn’t merely defense against hunters. The earth claims what belongs to it.”

“My heritage involves government cheese and foster care. Unless you’re suggesting my paperwork’s been significantly understating the family tree.”

She studies my dirt-streaked face as the ground beneath my feet shifts and settles. “Can’t you feel it? The tendrils reaching for you?”

And I can.

Something ancient reaching through soil, recognizing what flows in my veins. My awareness expands exponentially, suddenly connected to root systems stretching for miles beneath our feet.

Her eyes narrow. “Fae nature shatters mortal conditioning like spring destroys winter stone. The land remembers its royalty, even when royalty forgets itself.”

I stare at earth that’s bonded with my skin. When I scrub my arms, the soil moves but won’t fall away—not covering me but integrated into my flesh.

“Should probably be horrified by the whole ‘becoming one with nature’ thing. Instead, it feels like putting on clothes that actually fit for the first time in my life. Which is either beautiful or deeply disturbing.”

“Right,” she finishes. “Like coming home after exile.”

Wait. Did she just call me Fae? That’s impossible. I’m human.

Are you? Logic whispers back, and now my own nervous system agrees with uncomfortable persistence.

“The earth...” Words fail me completely as awareness floods through every pore.

“Earth knows its own,” she confirms. Her fingers trace patterns on her own forearm that mirror the thorns beneath my skin. “Watch.”

The ground around her feet responds. Moss blooms green where she stands. Roots reach toward her boots.

“You carry soil in your veins now,” she continues. “Water in your breath, fire in your thorns, air in your quickening pulse. The four elements recognize their heir.”

“Their heir? Sorry, I think you’ve got the wrong girl. I’m more ‘grunt with abandonment issues’ than ‘chosen one with destiny.’“

She doesn’t elaborate. Merely opens her palm to reveal my silver pendant.

The suppressor.

The cage I never knew I wore.

“You dropped this during the awakening,” she says, offering the chain.

Memory crashes back—Graves pressing it into my hand the night before deployment. “Never remove this, Ash.” His eyes had been colder than winter steel. “It’s for your protection.”

“Protection from what I truly am. Clever. Keep the weapon from knowing it’s a weapon until you’re ready to pull the trigger. Someone’s been playing chess while I was playing checkers.”

I stare at the silver chain in my palm. “How many times did you choke me when I got too close to the truth? How many instincts did you bury?” The metal burns cold against my skin in response. “Fucking figured.”

I stare at the innocuous silver chain while options ricochet through my skull. Part of me wants to hurl it into the forest, reject the limitation it represents. But long-ingrained survival instincts scream caution—the pendant means control, camouflage when needed.

Right now, walking into the Academy looking like I’ve molded with the earth itself, I need every advantage I can get.

I take it. Metal goes arctic cold against my palm like it recognizes the earth magic flowing beneath my skin. As it touches me, thorns dim visibly, retreating millimeters beneath flesh. My enhanced awareness dulls to manageable levels.

“Twenty-eight years of wearing a magical muzzle and I never knew it. Someone’s got a sick sense of humor—or a really impressive long-term strategy.”

The warrior watches with interest. “An interesting question. What does your blood tell you?”

My hand rebels against putting the chain around my throat. The thought of re-caging whatever’s awakened makes my stomach lurch with visceral disgust.

Without breaking eye contact with the warrior, I pocket the pendant.

“Choices shape the dawn,” she observes, approval flickering in those ancient depths.

“Right, because nothing says ‘business as usual’ like showing up to Combat Theory covered in mystical dirt with glowing plant tattoos. That won’t raise any questions.”

The warrior’s laughter surprises me—stones grinding together, rough but genuine. “Human schedules persist even as human biology fades. Perhaps this earth-claiming serves purpose.”

“Still waiting on that introduction, by the way. Unless ‘mysterious ancient warrior’ is how you prefer to be addressed. I can work with that.”

She smiles enigmatically. “Names have power, root-born. You’ll learn mine when you’re ready to hear it.”

She steps back, “Path straightens for your return. Follow quickly.”

As if summoned by her words, a trail appears between trees—arrow-straight, glowing faintly blue.

Obviously unnatural after the forest’s usual dimensional fuck-you.

I turn to thank her, but the ancient warrior has dissolved into dawn shadows, Whispen’s golden glow the last to fade.

The path back feels different beneath my transformed feet. Each step sends awareness rippling through soil-infused skin. My clothes stick to me, dirt and plant matter refusing all attempts at cleaning. Thorns pulse hypnotically through fabric, blue-green light painting my skin in alien patterns.

Halfway to the Academy, the real change hits.

Enhanced senses explode like a grenade going off in my skull.

I hear conversations from Academy grounds a mile away. Individual heartbeats of students waking. Specific words floating on impossible air currents.

Scents crash over me in devastating waves. Every flower. Every breakfast cooking. Every person who’s walked this path in the last week floods my nostrils until I gag.

My skin crawls with awareness of every insect. Every shift of wind. Every vibration through earth.

Colors strobe behind my eyelids—too bright, too many, more shades than human eyes should process.

Too much.

Too fucking much.

I stagger off the path, slamming my back against an ancient oak as my knees buckle.

The tree’s heartbeat thunders through my spine—massive, patient, older than civilization.

My vision tunnels, hands shaking as I press my palms against the bark while my nervous system threatens to overload completely.

“Can’t—too much—” I gasp. “Sensory overload. Like someone turned every dial to eleven and forgot to mention it might scramble my brain.”

“Breathe, root-born.”

The voice cuts through chaos like warm honey poured over exposed nerves, settling something wild in my chest. Low and rough, familiar in ways that bypass my brain and speak directly to newly awakened instincts.

The safety in his scent.

Orion emerges from green shadows like the forest birthed him. No sound of approach. No disturbed leaves. He simply materializes wearing that devastating grin that makes my stomach flip despite the sensory onslaught threatening to tear my skull apart.

He’s dressed for wilderness, not lectures. Leather vest over bronze skin. Boots made for tracking through untamed places. Auburn hair catches early light, red gleaming like living flame.

Those amber eyes lock onto mine with immediate understanding that floods my system with relief so profound my knees nearly buckle again.

“The earth has claimed you,” he says, wonder coloring his voice. Not fear or surprise—recognition that resonates through my bones.

“Too much.”

“First awakening overwhelms every sense until you learn to move with the forest instead of fighting it.”

Close enough now that his scent reaches me.

Woodsmoke.

Cedar.

Growing things.

Something green and wild that cuts through chaos instead of adding to it. His presence creates calm in the storm raging through my nervous system. A lighthouse beacon cutting through hurricane winds.

“I can smell emotions now. Fear tastes like pennies, desire smells like ozone, and you—” I breathe deeper. “You smell like every place I’ve ever wanted to belong. Which should terrify me more than it does.”

“You’re not meant for stone walls and iron cages,” he murmurs, reaching out slowly.

His fingertips trace one of the thorn patterns visible through my torn sleeve.

Contact.

Fire races through every nerve—not painful but awakening. Heat blooms where he touches, spreading outward, lower. My entire body burns with sweet flame. Every cell sings.

The sensory chaos doesn’t disappear, but his touch creates order from it, finding the frequency that cuts through static.

My core liquefies. My knees weaken. My body responds to him like it was made for his touch alone.

“How exactly does that work? Because last time I checked, emotional aromatherapy wasn’t part of basic human biology.”

“Wild recognizing Wild,” he says simply. “Your blood calls to mine. Like seeks like across any distance.”

His hand moves from my arm to my shoulder, then to the base of my neck where short hairs stand on end. Where his palm rests, warmth spreads like honey in my veins, golden and thick and right.

The sensory overload begins organizing itself into manageable streams—still intense but no longer crushing my sanity beneath its weight.

“Let me help,” he says, voice dropping to something intimate that makes my pulse spike and sends heat pooling low in my belly. “Let me show you how to hear what the forest is actually saying.”

He moves behind me, broad chest against my back, hands spanning my waist.

I should protest.