It started with mushrooms.

  Not the regular kind—the sort that politely grow in the shade and mind their own fungal business. No, these mushrooms glowed. With color. With attitude. With the kind of low, ambient menace typically reserved for cursed artifacts or poorly thought-out dating decisions.

  Ren found them while we were foraging. Or, more precisely, while was foraging and I was internally screaming about dew exposure and the fact that a crow had pooped on my hilt approximately four minutes ago.

  “Look at these,” he whispered, crouching beside a patch of glowing violet caps nestled under the roots of an old elm. “They’re beautiful.”

  Beautiful. Yes. If your definition of beauty includes mild bioluminescent doom.

  I hummed with as much warning as I could muster. “Those mushrooms are cursed. We’re talking whisper-to-your-nightmares-and-eat-your-liver kind of cursed.”

  Ren blinked. “They’re just mushrooms.”

  “Just mushrooms,” I echoed, the way a betrayed ancient being might echo the phrase moments before being turned into a coffee mug. “They’re glowing. In a forest. During daylight. Nothing good ever glows during daylight.”

  Ren gently patted one of the mushrooms. It shivered. I could feel the forest hold its breath.

  And then the ground opened up.

  To be fair, it wasn’t so much an ominous cracking as it was a soft, squishy, like a pancake folding in on itself. The earth sagged and sucked Ren straight down into a pit lined with roots, moss, and what appeared to be stairs made of stone and extremely poor decisions.

  Naturally, he took me with him.

  I landed hilt-first in a pile of damp leaves, shouting mental obscenities in five dead languages and one language made entirely of angry hissing. Ren, bless his optimism, sat up and said, “Wow. Hidden entrance!”

  Yes. A hidden entrance to the worst idea you’ve ever had, now available in mushroom-scented edition.

  ....We descended.

  The air was thick with damp magic. Not the sharp, metallic kind I was born from—the type that cracks lightning and calls down judgment—but a sleepy, green magic, like someone had brewed forest tea and poured it all over reality.

  Ren held me carefully, and I admit, just that I appreciated it. The path was narrow, overgrown in places, with carvings on the walls that whispered sideways things. Shapes moved in the edges of the light. Something giggled. Possibly a mushroom.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “This must be an old sanctuary,” Ren murmured, brushing dust off a mural. “Look. These figures—plants, animals, even spirits. It’s like nature had its own temple.”

  Nature did not need a temple. Nature needed boundaries. I was very close to demanding we turn around, but then the wall blinked.

  Not metaphorically.

  Literally.

  A moss-covered face opened its eyes, which were made entirely of glowing amber sap, and .

  I screamed. Internally.. Like a professional.

  The wall yawned, stretched—yes, —and said in a voice like compost having polite tea, “Welcome, child of softness. You bring... the funny one.”

  Ren beamed at his words, “That’s Mister Glimmers.”

  The wall freaking

  Trust me, I have never been more alarmed.

  We were led, by singing vines, no less, to the heart of the sanctuary—a domed cavern lit by natural skylight and filled with more glowing plants than I was emotionally prepared for. There was a tree at the center, massive and humming, with bark like braided lightning and roots that pulsed with slow, ancient rhythm.

  Ren stepped forward, awe in his eyes. I... I considered pretending to be a stick and waiting for a convenient wildfire to end this.

  As we headed forward, A tree

  “Wielder of Heart. Blade of Regret.”

  Oh no. It knew who I was. That meant it had

  “You carry ruin,” the tree murmured, as if it were complimenting my fashion sense. “Yet now you carry kindness. The forest sees this... and does not judge. It welcomes.”

  Ren smiled, hand tightening slightly on my hilt. “He’s changed. He just needs time.”

  I have never wanted to yeet myself into a cavern ceiling more in my life.

  And then——the tree reached out a tendril and

  Magic coursed through my core. Not cold. Not sharp. But it was rather

  I shrieked. Not aloud, but in a kind of mental high note so piercing I’m certain I briefly contacted three gods and a confused squirrel.

  When it ended, the tree whispered, “Let your roots grow. Even blades can bloom.”

  I have no idea what that means.

  But what I hated more was that it meant something.

  Ren was gifted a leaf that pulsed with gentle power and as we were departing the forest said we were welcome any time. It called me . I do not want to be sweet steel. I want to be

  We returned to the surface with the leaf tucked into Ren’s satchel and me humming so aggressively I accidentally scared off two deer and a druid.

  [Quest Completed: Discover the Hidden Sanctuary of the Verdant Hollow]

  [Reward: +4 Heart, +1 Forest Affinity, New Passive: “Peace Bloom – Presence reduces hostility of nearby natural creatures”]

  I am not a walking aura diffuser. I am death in blade form. I should calm rabbits. Ung!! I should hunt them!! I am crying from misery right now - professionally.

  That night, Ren brewed mushroom tea (why, dear gods, ), and set the glowing leaf in a bowl of water on the windowsill. It pulsed like a heartbeat, and I could feel it—quietly, patiently—whispering that I was

  I wanted to rage. I wanted to resist.

  But Ren sat beside me, hummed something soft, and said, “You were really brave today.”

  And somehow, the worst part of it all wasn’t the vines, or the magic, or the tree that tried to emotionally hug me.

  It was that a very, very small part of me believed him.

  And this time, I didn’t hum.

  I glowed.