When Bonbon’s light faded and Celeste caught her up in proud arms, Elder Arlo’s staff tapped softly once more against the stone.
“One more before the sisters,” he said.
Hughes sighed, rolling his shoulders. “Figures. Save the old goat for last.”
Celeste smiled faintly. “You’ve got this, Hughes.”
He gave her a half-smirk. “If I come back sprouting mushrooms, I’m blaming you.”
He stepped into the circle, shoulders squared, and pressed his thumb behind his ear.
Click.
The chip disengaged.
The air thickened—damp and rich.
The stone floor turned to soil beneath his hooves. Vines crept up his arms, winding through the fur and around the old scars on his wrists. His horns shimmered with living moss, his breath carrying the scent of rain and bark.
His eyes turned gold-green, pupils horizontal like a true billy goat’s—yet deeper, older, carrying something that had survived too many winters.
His skin rippled with patterns of bark and leaflight.
Half beast, half grove.
Half soldier, half soul.
Elder Arlo’s tone softened.
“You, Hughes of the Leshy blood, have lived by command. By duty. By what others allowed you to be. But what do you allow yourself to become?”
Hughes frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Your Trial is not of obedience or power. It is of time. Of waiting. Of healing what has been broken.”
The ground rippled—
and the world changed.
He stood in a silent orchard—rows of trees twisted and blackened, their branches like claws against a colourless sky.
In his palm, a single glowing seed.
He stared at it, jaw tight. “I plant this, and what? Watch it rot?”
No one answered.
He knelt, pressing it into the ground.
Waited.
Nothing.
He poured water from a nearby stream.
Nothing.
He shouted, cursed, struck the dirt until his feet dug furrows.
Still nothing.
His breath shook.
His throat burned.
And memory surged.
Rain.
Mud.
Chains clinking against his wrists.
He saw himself years ago—standing in a line of hybrid soldiers, blood matting his fur. The captain’s insignia still clung to his tattered coat.
The superior officer—a Pureblood—spat words like venom.
“Failure. Liability. You are dismissed.”
Then came the lashes.
Each one burned humiliation deeper into his back than pain ever could.
He remembered the laughter.
The whispers.
“A hybrid goat in a captain’s coat—what did you expect?”
The lash cracked again.
Hughes flinched.
And this time, beneath the sound of rain and laughter, another voice rose.
Low.
Thick.
Familiar.
Scottish, rough as stone dragged over gravel.
“We need tae make them pay, Hugh.”
Hughes froze.
The orchard darkened around him.
The memory shifted.
Beside him, half-hidden in storm and shadow, stood a massive shape. Broad. Heavy. Terrible. A gigantic hippo formed from mud, smoke, and old grief. His eyes glowed dull red beneath a broken soldier’s helm.
Bogmaw.
Hughes’ throat tightened. “No…”
“They’ve done this tae us for too long,” Bogmaw growled. “Too long. Every chain. Every lash. Every order barked from cowards who’d wet themselves if they had tae fight half the battles we fought.”
The vines beneath Hughes’ hooves stirred.
Tightened.
His breath grew heavier.
The Trial made him feel everything again: bark peeled away from his back, fur torn raw beneath it, old blood soaking into mud. The shame. The pain. The injustice of it. The way they had taken everything he had given and still called him less.
His fists clenched.
The vines curled higher around his legs, digging in like roots hungry for blood.
Bogmaw stepped closer, voice low and burning. “Tell me ye dinnae want it.”
Hughes said nothing.
Because he did.
That was the terrible thing.
He wanted it.
He wanted them afraid. Wanted the officers who laughed to kneel in the same mud. Wanted every Pureblood who had looked through him, every Council mouth that had called hybrids useful until they were inconvenient, to feel even one inch of what they had done.
The orchard trembled.
The seed in the earth blackened.
Hughes’ heart thundered, full of thorns.
Wrathful.
Alive.
Bogmaw smiled, huge and shadowed. “Aye. There it is. That’s the truth of ye.”
Hughes’ breathing grew ragged. “It wasn’t fair.”
“No,” Bogmaw said. “It wasn’t.”
“I gave them everything.”
“Aye.”
“And they threw me away.”
“They did.”
The vines tightened again.
For one dangerous moment, Hughes wanted to let them.
Then—
a different memory came.
Soft.
Warm.
A laugh like silver bells in summer grass.
His pixie-colt wife, standing in morning light, brushing pollen from her sleeves while pretending not to notice him staring.
Then his son, small and furious, trying to stand on wobbly legs and yelling that he could do it himself.
Then his daughter, asleep against his chest, one tiny hand tangled in the fur of his coat.
The anger did not vanish.
Not at once.
But it loosened.
The vines around his legs stopped tightening.
Hughes closed his eyes, grief moving through him like rain through old roots.
When he opened them again, Bogmaw was still there.
Waiting.
Hughes looked up at the enormous shadow of his old friend.
“Bogmaw,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
The hippo’s eyes narrowed. “Dinnae.”
“I can’t.”
Bogmaw’s jaw tightened. “Dinnae say that.”
“I can’t do this.”
“Coward.”
The word struck deep.
Hughes flinched, but did not step back.
Bogmaw’s voice rose, heavy with fury and hurt. “The Council will come for yer family one day. Ye ken that, aye? They’ll come with papers first. Then chains. Then fire. And when they do, no one will save them.”
Hughes’ eyes shone. “Please, Bogmaw…”
The shadow stepped closer, towering over him. “No one saved us.”
“I know.”
“Then why should they live soft?”
Hughes’ voice broke. “Because if I become what they made of me, they win.”
Bogmaw stared at him.
For a heartbeat, the old friend beneath the shadow almost showed through.
Then his face hardened.
“I will,” Bogmaw said, voice low and certain. “Ye’ll thank me someday.”
The vines beneath Hughes surged, black and thorned, racing toward the seed like veins full of poison.
Hughes dropped to his knees, both hands pressing into the soil.
“No,” he whispered.
The shadow laughed bitterly. “Still trying tae grow flowers in a battlefield.”
“Aye,” Hughes said, tears slipping down his face. “Someone has to.”
The vines stopped.
The orchard held its breath.
Hughes’ heart softened.
Not cleanly.
Not without guilt.
The wrath was still there, curled deep in the roots of him. The anger had not disappeared. The memory had not forgiven.
But above it, beside it, through it—
love remained.
His wife.
His son.
His daughter.
The people still living.
The ones who needed more than revenge.
Hughes bowed his head over the seed.
“All I ever did was fight to prove I wasn’t trash,” he whispered. “That I was worth something. And still they threw me away.”
The old voice came again—not Bogmaw’s this time.
His own.
Older.
Gentler.
“You were never discarded. You just kept handing your worth to people who couldn’t see it.”
A long silence followed.
Then the voice whispered:
“Plant it again. And wait.”
Hughes stared at the soil—muddy now from rain and tears.
Then slowly, he pressed the seed back into the ground.
This time, he did not shout.
He did not curse.
He did not demand it grow fast enough to prove him right.
He just…
waited.
A heartbeat.
A breath.
A lifetime.
Then—
the soil shifted.
A small sprout emerged, glowing faintly green.
Hughes exhaled, trembling. “You’re kidding me…”
The sprout unfurled into vines that coiled up his arms, warm and alive. Around him, the orchard transformed—barren trees blooming with blossoms of emerald and silver.
Leaves drifted through the air like forgiveness.
At the edge of the orchard, Bogmaw’s shadow lingered.
Huge.
Silent.
Still wounded.
Still angry.
Hughes looked at him, guilt heavy in his chest.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered again.
Bogmaw did not answer.
Then the mist took him.
For the first time since his dismissal, Hughes smiled—softly, without bitterness.
“Guess… I don’t have to prove anything anymore.”
The orchard whispered back, gentle as breath:
“You never did.”
When Hughes stepped from the circle, the moss still clung faintly to his horns, a small flower blooming from one.
Mezzo grinned. “Look at that! Walking compost miracle!”
Hughes smirked, shaking dirt from his fur. “Better compost than ash.”
Elder Arlo bowed deeply.
“The earth has found its keeper. You no longer carry the shame of others, only your own roots.”
Hughes nodded, a little bashful. “Guess someone’s gotta keep the rest of you from blowing away.”
Ray snorted. “So… basically a magical gardener with trauma.”
He shot her a look—but smiled.
“Yeah. And proud of it.”
The group laughed softly, tension easing as the runes dimmed.
None of them noticed the faint pulse beneath the soil—roots glowing green-gold, spreading far beyond the circle.
For the first time in years, Hughes didn’t feel discarded.
He felt planted.
Elder Arlo’s calm voice eventually broke through the whispers.
He turned toward them, his staff faintly glowing with runes that pulsed like heartbeats.
“We are going to reinforce the barrier,” he said, the words chosen with careful weight. “For your protection—and ours.”
He looked first to Lumina.
“You will go first, little one. Your core is less powerful than your sister’s.”
Lumina’s tail lashed once, ears flattening. “I’m just as powerful as Celeste! I can do it!”
Arlo gave a patient, almost sorrowful smile.
“That is true, child. But today, we must be careful. We will strengthen the shield—and then, you shall begin.”
Lumina folded her arms, pouting faintly.
The air around her shimmered with faint light, like a sun trying to break through storm clouds.
Celeste, sensing the tension, reached out gently.
“Are you alright, Lumi?”
“I’m fine,” Lumina snapped—too fast, too sharp.
Celeste blinked at the tone. “You can talk to me—”
“I said I’m fine!” Lumina’s voice cracked. “You’re not my mam, so stop asking!”
The outburst hit like a slap in the quiet valley.
Bonbon flinched in Celeste’s arms.
Even the air seemed to still.
Celeste’s voice softened immediately. “Lumi… that’s not like you.”
Lumina’s defiance faltered. Her ears drooped, tail curling inward.
“I—” She sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I’m just… scared.”
Her voice trembled.
“Everything’s been so much lately. I don’t want to mess this up.”
Celeste smiled faintly, resting a gentle hand on her sister’s shoulder.
“Hey. I’m here if you need me.”
Lumina hesitated.
For a heartbeat, her eyes softened—the little sister Celeste remembered peeking through.
But then she looked away.
Her words came quieter.
“Everybody needs you, don’t they?”
Celeste froze. “What?”
Lumina didn’t answer. She just looked down at her hands, jaw tight, pretending to focus on the glowing runes being drawn around her feet.
Elder Arlo cleared his throat softly, breaking the silence.
“Elders, prepare the reinforcement wards. If either core destabilises, these sigils will keep them tethered.”
One of the elder seers approached with a small crystal bowl, dipping a feathered quill into shimmering mana ink. She began tracing careful patterns along Celeste and Lumina’s wrists and collarbones—thin, glowing lines of silver and blue.
Celeste nodded her understanding, though her gaze never left Lumina.
But Lumina barely noticed the quill’s touch.
Her mind was a storm of whispers she couldn’t quiet.
Why does no one ever look at me that way?
Why does everyone turn to her?
Why does everyone need Celeste—
but not me?
