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Hungry.

A mouth slowly opens in its center.

Mercy’s voice crawls out.

“Bride.”

“No.”

My voice doesn’t shake.

I hold up my wrist.

“Keeper.”

The mouth closes.

I reach into the hole.

Ezra inhales sharply beside me, but he doesn’t stop me.

My fingers touch the root.

Pain explodes through my body.

Every Harvest hits me at once.

Every sacrifice.

Every scream.

Every feast.

Every mouth.

Every body.

Every drop of blood spilled into this soil.

Pleasure crashes into agony. Laughter twists into screaming. Music becomes begging. Orgasms bleed into death until centuries of human excess tear through me so fast I can’t separate one life from another.

I feel all of it.

Every fucking second.

And beneath everything… hunger.

That’s all it is.

Not evil.

Not good.

Hungry.

It became monstrous because people taught it monstrosity.

For one terrible second, I almost pity it.