novelraw Chapter 132 : The Roots Rejoined
Chapter 132 : The Roots Rejoined
(Rooga’s POV)
She was crying.
The tears ran down her cheeks in silence, catching the sunlight like tiny pieces of glass.
For a moment, I forgot everything—the grove, the wind, even the faint hum of Maori’s mana behind me.
I just stared at her, the silver-haired girl who looked at me like she had been waiting her entire life.
Her eyes… they were strange.
Not in color, but in depth.
They looked like someone who had seen too much, then forgot what ordinary sight even meant.
“Hey,” I said softly, unsure if my voice would reach her.
She blinked, wiping her tears with the back of her hand, still looking at me like she wasn’t sure I was real.
“You can see me now, right?”
She nodded faintly. “Yes.”
“Then you should probably stop crying,” I said, scratching my cheek. “People might think I did something.”
Her lips curved just a little, the smallest smile. “You didn’t.”
That voice… it was quiet, melodic—like someone who’d forgotten how to speak and was learning all over again.
Behind her, Mother stood frozen, watching us from the path with an expression I couldn’t quite read.
Lyra stood beside her, calm but alert, her mana ready to react if something went wrong.
I didn’t understand why everyone seemed so tense.
All I saw was a girl who looked like she’d just found something precious.
She reached up to touch her face, fingers brushing over her blindfold now hanging loose around her neck.
Her gaze drifted across the grove, wide-eyed, almost fascinated.
“The world…” she murmured, “it’s quiet.”
I frowned. “Quiet?”
“I used to see mana,” she said softly. “Everything. Every thread, every current, every color. It never stopped. It hurt.”
She looked around again, her eyes filling with wonder.
“But here… when I’m near you, it’s all gone. I can see like everyone else.”
Her words made me pause.
It wasn’t the first time someone had mentioned strange things happening around me—Maori often said my mana interfered with others, overlapping like a second layer of the world.
But this was different.
She wasn’t afraid of it.
She looked relieved.
Before I could answer, the air stirred.
The branches of the great tree rustled, and the ground beneath our feet vibrated faintly.
A voice, warm and deep, filled the grove.
“So, you’ve finally arrived, child of the old root.”
The girl, I thought she was called—froze.
Her head turned toward the voice, her expression shifting from calm to reverent awe.
“Is that…?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
Maori’s form shimmered into view, her golden hair flowing like sunlight through water.
Her gaze was soft but knowing, her presence filling the grove like the breath of spring.
“You walk with the light of Elandriel’s descendants,” Maori said gently. “But your name carries no deceit.”
The girl bowed her head. “I thought you were gone. All the songs said you were lost to corruption.”
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Maori’s laughter was quiet, amused, almost sad.
“Lost? Perhaps. Forgotten, certainly. They called me by another name, didn’t they?”
The girl hesitated. “Elandriel.”
“Ah,” Maori smiled faintly. “They made me sound far kinder than I was.”
Her gaze turned to me then—soft, maternal, but with that ancient weight I could never get used to.
“Rooga,” she said. “You’ve found your echo.”
“Echo?” I asked.
“The other half of your melody. The one who heard your light even before you knew it existed.”
I blinked. “That sounds… confusing.”
Maori chuckled. “It always is, in the beginning.”
The girl lifted her face toward me again.
“I didn’t know,” she said quietly, “that the one I was looking for would be like this.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Human,” she said simply. “Kind. Ordinary.”
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or feel insulted, so I just shrugged. “Ordinary’s not a bad thing.”
She smiled again—small, fragile, but real.
The kind of smile that carried gratitude instead of joy.
Behind us, the grove’s light dimmed slightly as Maori’s form faded, her voice echoing one last time.
“Let your roots meet, and let the world decide what grows from it.”
The silence that followed felt heavy, but not uncomfortable.
The girl turned her gaze toward the distant sky, the light catching the edge of her hair.
She whispered, almost to herself, “I can finally see.”
And when she looked at me again, I realized she wasn’t just talking about her eyes.
(Maori’s POV)
The grove was breathing again.
Not the calm, steady rhythm it had known since Rooga planted his first bloom, but a trembling pulse that rippled through soil and sky alike.
Every branch shivered.
Every root whispered my name.
The moment the girl stepped into this place, I felt it—like the missing beat of my own heart had returned.
For centuries I had slept, then awoken, then slept again, pieces of myself scattered through time.
When I awoke as Maori, I believed that was all that remained—an echo of the goddess the world had once called Mara.
But now, standing beneath the great tree, I could feel her mana brushing mine—soft, familiar, impossibly old.
My other half.
The girl’s presence radiated through the roots as if the land itself had found its lost reflection.
Her mana didn’t crash against mine like a rival—it merged, folding into the flow of the grove until I couldn’t tell where she ended and I began.
The last time I felt that harmony… was before the corruption.
I watched as she and Rooga stood together—my caretaker and the remnant I had once been.
His mana overlapped hers perfectly, dimming her chaotic light into calm rhythm.
It was strange, even beautiful, seeing the world find balance through them.
And then I noticed movement at the edge of the clearing.
The elves.
The ones who had come with her.
They stood still for a moment, their faces pale as moonlight, their eyes wide.
Then one of them—a Sentinel in silver armor—fell to his knees.
The others followed.
Even the human guards nearby dropped to one knee in confusion.
“Elandriel…” the Sentinel whispered, his voice trembling. “Mother of the Root… you live.”
That name again.
Elandriel.
I almost laughed.
They still clung to that polished word, that title given to hide the rough truth of what I once was.
Elandriel—the gentle Mother of Renewal.
Soft, pure, distant.
Not Mara.
Not the stubborn goddess who had torn the land apart trying to protect it.
But as their voices rose, chanting that name like a prayer, I felt no anger—only an old, tired ache.
So much time had passed that even my name had been rewritten.
Who was I to correct them now?
The ground shivered.
Beyond the grove, mana veins stirred beneath the Borderland—the same veins Rooga had awakened years ago.
The pulse traveled through them, faster and faster, like blood returning to a long-dead limb.
The air tasted of rain and light.
The corrupted lands to the east groaned under the pressure, their poison pushed back by the flood of life surging outward.
Balance was shifting.
The world was responding to reunion.
I could feel it—like the wind itself was whispering:
The goddess is whole again.
I looked to Rooga, still speaking gently with the girl.
She was smiling—nervous, uncertain, but unafraid.
He looked at her the way he looked at the world itself: curious, patient, kind.
That was the difference between him and the old gods.
Where we saw duty, he saw people.
Where we demanded worship, he offered care.
And it was because of that simple heart that my halves—growth and foresight—had finally found each other again.
The irony wasn’t lost on me.
It took a mortal child, not a god, to complete what divinity could not.
The elves’ voices trembled through the grove, still praying, still kneeling.
I raised a hand, and the roots of the great tree shifted—softly, tenderly—silencing them.
“You may call me what you wish,” I said, my voice echoing through the leaves.
“But remember this: the world was never healed by names, only by those who live in it.”
Their heads bowed deeper, reverent silence replacing their chants.
I turned my gaze toward Rooga and the girl—two lights intertwined, steady and bright.
“The roots have found each other,” I whispered. “Now the branches will grow… and so will the storms.”