Chapter 11: Chapter 11: The Thorn Wall

The golden fruit pulsed on its branch, casting warm light across my face. My hand hovered over it—close enough to feel the heat radiating off its skin, the way it hummed against my palm.

"I wouldn't," the voice said from below. "Pick it before it's ripe, and you'll get nothing but a mouthful of poison."

I pulled my hand back. The tree shivered.

The rift wasn't a hole in the ground so much as a wound—a long, jagged tear in the earth where the black soil of the abyss bled up into the field's clean brown dirt. I hadn't noticed it before. I'd been too focused on the seed, on the ritual of planting, on the impossible tree that had grown from my hands.

But now I saw it clearly. A fissure running through my little farm, dividing normal earth from that dark, hungry soil. And from that fissure, a shape was rising.

He came up slow, like a man climbing out of a swimming pool. First his head—hair the color of ash, slicked back from a face that might have been handsome once, before the abyss had claimed him. Then his shoulders, wrapped in a coat that looked like it was made of woven shadow. Then the rest of him, tall and lean, with hands that moved like they were used to holding things that fought back.

He stepped onto the grass and dusted off his sleeves. The shadow-stuff of his coat rippled, refusing to settle.

"Master Wei's little farm," he said, looking around with something between amusement and disgust. "I'd heard he'd taken a new student. I didn't believe it at first. Master Wei, taking on an apprentice? After what happened to me?"

The rooster fluffed itself to full size, letting out a warning crow that echoed across the field.

The man—the apprentice, the one who'd turned—looked at the rooster with mild interest. "And he gave you a spirit fowl too. How generous. He never gave me anything but the book."

I stepped forward, putting myself between him and the tree. Xiao Bai moved with me, arrow nocked, bowstring drawn.

"You're the one who's been in my dreams," I said.

The apprentice's eyebrows rose. "Your dreams? No, I don't think so. I don't wander into other people's sleep. But I've been watching you. Ever since I felt that first seed sprout. That was supposed to be my seed, you know. Master Wei gave it to me, and I failed. And then he gave it to you—a man from a world without abyss, without qi, without even a proper understanding of what he was holding." He smiled. "And you grew it. In three weeks."

"What do you want?"

"Want?" He laughed. It was a hollow sound. "I want to understand. That's all. I've been in the abyss for eight years, farmer. I've made a life down there. Built alliances. Learned things Master Wei never deigned to teach me." His smile turned sharp. "But I never grew a single seed. Not one. And then you come along, some delivery driver from a dead world, and you grow the bloodvine in a week and the fruit tree in a month?"

He took a step forward. Xiao Bai's bow creaked.

"Stay back," she said.

The apprentice ignored her. He was looking at me with an intensity that made my skin crawl. "What did he give you that he didn't give me? Tell me, and I'll leave. I'll go back to my holes and my dark friends and never trouble you again."

"The book," I said. "He gave me his book."

The apprentice's eyes widened. Then he laughed again, but this time it was bitter, sharp-edged. "The book. Of course. The book. I spent three years begging him to show me that book. Three years of swallowing my pride, kissing his feet, doing everything he asked and more. And he never even let me touch the cover."

"He didn't give it to me either, at first."

"At first." The apprentice shook his head. "At first. You've had it for what—a month? And you've already grown two seeds. I had three seeds over eight years. I grew none."

He was closer now. I could smell him—old earth and something acrid, like burned copper. His shadow-coat rippled at the edges, reaching toward the ground like it wanted to spread roots.

"The fruit," he said, nodding toward the tree. "That's the second seed's fruit. Do you know what it is?"

"Enlighten me."

"It's the fruit of memory. Eat it, and you'll see everything that's ever happened in this place. Every seed Master Wei planted. Every thing he buried. Every secret he took to his grave." The apprentice's voice dropped. "And if the wrong person eats it, they'll see everything you've ever done too."

I looked at the golden fruit, still glowing on its branch. Nice. So it wasn't just a treasure—it was a liability. The kind of thing that could get me killed if word got out.

"You've been down there eight years," I said. "What's the harvest like?"

The apprentice blinked. It took him a moment to understand the question.

"The harvest?"

"Yeah. The soil in the abyss. You can grow things down there, can't you? That's what this is all about, isn't it? The seeds, the abyss, the rift." I gestured at the fissure in my field. "It's not about the plants. It's about what they connect to."

The apprentice's smug expression flickered. For just a second, I saw something else underneath—surprise, maybe. Respect.

"You're smarter than you look, farmer."

"Thanks. Now answer the question."

He was quiet for a moment. The rooster kept staring at him, hackles raised. Xiao Bai hadn't lowered her bow.

"The abyss can grow things," he said finally. "But they're not like what you grow up here. They're hungry. Twisted. Everything Down There wants to consume, to spread, to pull the surface down with it." He paused. "But there are plants down there that can do the opposite. Plants that can push back. That can seal the rifts, purify the corruption, make the abyss... habitable."

I felt my great-grandfather's presence at the edge of my mind. He was listening, I realized. Watching through my eyes.

"Master Wei believed the abyss wasn't a disease," the apprentice continued. "He believed it was a wound. And wounds can be healed. But to heal them, you need medicine that grows in the darkness itself. Medicine from abyss seeds. Seeds like the ones he gave me."

He took another step forward. Xiao Bai twitched.

"But I couldn't grow them," he said. "I tried everything. Different soils, different waters, different rituals. I prayed. I bled. I even tried—" He stopped. His jaw tightened. "I even tried feeding them. Blood. Fresh blood. Human blood. And still they wouldn't grow. Not until you came along."

I felt a chill run down my spine. "What do you mean, you fed them?"

The apprentice's smile returned, thin and sharp as a blade. "You don't know, do you? He didn't tell you. He never told me either, but I figured it out eventually. The seeds—the abyss seeds—they don't want water and sunlight. They want what they've always wanted." He pointed at the tree. "That thing grew because you planted it in the right place, at the right time, with the right... fertilizer."

The vine in my arm throbbed. Once. Twice. Three times.

"Fertilizer," I repeated.

"You've been bleeding into that vine every night, haven't you? Every time it pulses, every time it aches, you push your qi into it to calm the pain. And that blood—that qi—it's not just feeding the vine." He nodded at the tree. "It's feeding everything you plant."

I looked down at my hand. The vine's tendrils were visible beneath my skin, dark green against the pale of my wrist. It had been a part of me for weeks now. I'd come to think of it as a companion, almost. A friend.

The apprentice's words made me feel dirty.

"You came all the way from the abyss just to tell me this?" I asked.

"I came to warn you." His voice shifted suddenly, losing its mocking edge. "The things that live in the dark—they know what you're growing. They've felt it. And they're coming for it. For you. Not because they want the fruit. Because they're afraid of what it represents."

"The fruit of memory," I said.

"The fruit of truth." He glanced at the tree, and for a moment, I could swear I saw something in his face. Longing, almost. Grief. "Everything that lives Down There is built on lies. The abyss tells you you're alone. It tells you there's no way out, no hope, no light. But this fruit—" He gestured at the golden globe. "This fruit would show them the truth. That there's a world above. That there's a way to heal. That they don't have to be what they've become."

He met my eyes. "And there are some things that would kill to keep that truth buried."

The wind picked up. The tree rustled, its jade leaves whispering. And from the direction of the rift, I heard another sound. Not footsteps this time, but something worse.

A scratching. A scrabbling. Like a hundred claws against stone.

I looked down.

The black soil at the edge of the rift was moving. Churning. And through it, things were starting to crawl out.

The apprentice turned to look at the rift too. His expression was unreadable.

"They're early," he said quietly. "I thought I'd have more time."

"Who's early?" Xiao Bai demanded. "What are those things?"

The first shape clawed its way onto the grass. It was small, about the size of a rat, but it had too many legs and no eyes. Its skin was black and slick, and it moved like a drop of oil rolling across the field.

"The abyss always sends something," the apprentice said. "Whenever a new seed grows, it sends scavengers to take it. They're not strong, but they're persistent. And they're just the first wave."

Another shape emerged. Then another. Within seconds, a dozen of the creatures were crawling across the field, moving in a loose formation toward the tree.

The rooster launched itself at the nearest one, its claws raking across the creature's back. It burst like a bubble, leaving nothing behind.

"They're weak," Xiao Bai said.

"These ones are," the apprentice agreed. "But they're not the ones you should worry about. The scavengers always come first. They test your defenses. And while they're testing—" He paused, listening. "—the real hunters are finding your scent."

I heard it then. Deep below the rift, a low growl, like the grinding of distant stone. Something big was moving down there.

The vine in my arm throbbed harder. Warning. Urgency.

I looked at the golden fruit, still on the tree, still glowing.

"What do we do?" I asked.

The apprentice smiled. It was the first genuine expression I'd seen on his face. "You're asking me? I've spent eight years running from those things. I don't fight them. I hide."

"You came up here to warn me. You must want something."

His smile faded. He looked at me for a long moment, then at the tree, then at the golden fruit pulsing at the top.

"I want to see it," he said. "The fruit. I want to taste it. Just once. I want to remember what it was like before I fell." His voice cracked on the last word. "Before I became what I am."

More creatures were crawling out of the rift now. The rooster was holding its own, but there were too many. Xiao Bai