Inside, the shop was warm. It smelt of roasted beans and cinnamon.
Orla, Chis, the Elder, and I sat down at a front table. The contrast was jarring; outside, the world was ending, but here, we looked like four friends deciding what to order for lunch. Except Orla was vibrating with suppressed panic, the Elder was weeping silently into a napkin, and Chis was floating cross-legged above her chair, looking bored.
"We are in a pincer movement," Orla said, her voice tight. She traced a line on the wooden table with her gloved finger. "East and West will destroy and scorch the earth. They are both targeting the encroaching tree line."
"Twenty minutes for the Humans," Orla muttered, glancing at the wall clock. "Maybe ten for the Demons."
"We cannot stop the growth," the Elder whispered, her voice trembling. "The childr'n are starv'd. They seek the light. They seek the warmth. Dhou cannot command a drowning man not to gasp for air."
"That's it," I said, a thought sparking in my brain. I grabbed a napkin and a pen from the holder. "We've been looking at this wrong. We're trying to stop them from eating. We need to change what they eat."
I drew a circle on the napkin.
"Physics," I said, tapping the paper. "Phototropism. Plants grow toward the light. Right now, the centre is cold and dark because of the freeze. The edges, the realms are hot and bright. So they run away from us."
I drew a big 'X' right in the middle of the circle.
"We need to pull a U-turn. We need to create a light source right here. Something brighter than the sun. Something hotter than the Demon Wastes."
Orla stared at me. "Darya, you're a human. You can't build a star."
I took a glance toward Chis. "Again, Chis… Call your master!"
Orla interjected, her eyes widening. "Wait—wait… You want to ask the Demon Lord to make a second sun?"
"Precisely."
Orla and the Elder froze.
"Are you crazy?" Orla replied, a mixture of fear and disbelief flooding her eyes. "That's a level of power we shouldn't even be considering. You are inviting the Void to shine!"
I shrugged, determined. "Desperate times call for desperate measures."
"Hold on…" The Elder interjected, wiping her eyes. "Dhou saidst my forest is hungry. Why doest dhou suggest we give the forest more light?"
"My suggestion is to arrest the expansion so it can't attack the other realms," I explained. "This won't stop the forest completely. It redirects it."
"Dhou meanest," the Elder said slowly, "creating a second sun could potentially prevent the forest from spreading to other realms?"
I nodded, hoping they would understand the gravity of the situation.
"It means..." The Elder stood slowly, leaning her face inches from mine. "It means dhou wouldst try to keep the hung'r contain'd? Dhou wouldst force the overgrowth into one place, rather than letting it spread and consume everything in its path?"
The Elder didn't just stand; she erupted. The chair she had been sitting in scraped backward with a violent screech, and for a moment, the 'Royal' weight she had lost seemed to return, fueled by pure, unadulterated fury.
She slammed her palms onto the wooden table, her face inches from mine. Her hazel eyes, once dim and exhausted, flared with a sickly, bright verdant light.
"Dhou... dhou monster!" she hissed, her voice vibrating with the sound of grinding stone. "Dhou speakst of 'physics' and 'hormones' as if my domain art a mere experiment! Dhou wouldst beckon the childr'n back to the heart of my home only to feed them a false light?"
"Listen—"
"I list'n to dhou and I hear a butcher!" she roared. "If dhou placest a sun at the cent'r of the Spirit Wood, dhou art not 'saving' us. Dhou art turning my kingdome into a sacrificial tumor!"
She stabbed a finger at the 'X' I'd drawn on the napkin.
"Dhou knowest what happeneth when dhou feedest an infinite hung'r in a confin'd space? The heart of the forest is already dense. They will crush one anoth'r, root against root, branch against branch, in a desperate, suffocating pile just to reach thy false star! My realm will become a mountain of strangl'd wood, a graveyard of green madness, just so the Humans and Demons can sleep soundly because the 'invasion' hath stopp'd!"
I didn't flinch. "If they stay on their current path, the Human Mages and the Demon Lords will burn the borders to ash in less than an hour. Is a strangling forest in the centre worse than total extinction on the edges?"
"Dhou wouldst make my home the sink for the world's greed!" she screamed, a tear of amber sap rolling down her cheek. "Dhou wouldst trap them in a cycle of endless hung'r, overgrowing and dying in the same breath, just to save the empires of men and ash!"
"I need Lilith," I said, my voice cold and flat. I looked at the Elder, matching her gaze. "I'm not just making a sun, Elder. I'm making a lure. If the forest overgrows at the centre, it buys us the time to perform the Metabolic Reset."
I leaned in, my face inches from hers.
"You call it a tumour. I call it a distraction. I'm going to feed them until they're bloated, and then I'm going to cut the light and force them into a deep, centuries-long sleep. Your realm will be a tangled mess, yes. It will be overgrown and impossible to navigate. But it will be alive. Which is more than I can say for what happens if the 'Scorched Earth' spells hit."
The Elder's breath hitched. Her fury didn't vanish, but it flickered, caught between the horror of my plan and the grim reality of the clocks ticking on the wall.
"Dhou art a cruel gardener, human," she whispered. "I won't participate in this… First of all, all of this is because of dhou…" Slowly, she leaned towards me again, her finger trembling. "Dhou art the one who toldst us how to use time with a tree; dhou art the one who broke the cycle… And now, dhou throwest us into the fire without a second thought."
The Elder's eyes bore into mine, filled with a mix of betrayal and understanding. "But I will not let dhou destroy everything we have work'd for," she declared, her voice unwavering.
"I am a pragmatic individual," I replied, not backing down. "You hate the Second Sun plan. Fine. I have a second option. Physics says the plants are moving because of a differential in light. Hot edges, cold centre. They chase the high energy."
I turned back to the room.
"So, if we don't want to create a new sun... we remove the old one."
The room went dead silent. Even Chis stopped swinging her legs.
"Lilith is the Demon Lord," I continued, pointing at the floating spirit. "She must have the power to expand the night. We don't make a beacon. Instead, we ask her to blot out the sky. A total, global eclipse. Eternal Darkness."
The Elder blinked, her fury momentarily stalled by the sheer scale of the concept. "Dhou wouldst... steal the sun?"
"If there is no sun," I explained, "there is no phototropism. The plants won't run to the Human realm or the Demon realm because there will be nothing there to chase. They will stop moving. They will go dormant. Your domain remains frozen, yes, but it won't be a tumour. It will just be... still."
"That sounds perfect," the Elder breathed, a flicker of hope lighting her face. "A world of quiet night. The childr'n would sleep. No crushing. No tangling."
"It sounds like death," Orla cut in, her voice sharp as steel. She stood up, knocking her chair back. "Darya, are you out of your mind? You're talking about plunging the Human Kingdom into a permanent sleep, essentially killing everyone there. We can't do that."
"Not permanent," I interjected. "You remember Chis in a state of caffeine rush last night?"
"Yeah, I remember that nightmare."
"That's the forest's condition right now. Hyperactive. We need to let the forest rest. We force a global night. However, how long will it take? I still don't know."
"Still, removing the sunlight is too risky," Orla argued. "Our crops would die. Our livestock would freeze."
"Exactly," I said, looking at the Elder. "That's the catch."
I tapped the table hard.
"Option B saves your forest structure. But to do it, we need the consent of the realms. The Lord of the Realm from Human isn't going to sign a treaty to delete the sun. Lilith may be going to agree to freeze their pits. If we try to do this without permission, we aren't stopping a war. We are starting a crusade. The entire world will unite to kill us just to get the lights back on."
I leaned toward the Elder.
"So here is thy choice. The clock is ticking. We have less than fifteen minutes."
I held up one finger.
"Choice One: The Second Sun. We lure the forest back to the centre. It becomes a tangled, overgrown, tumourous mess in thy backyard. It hurts thee, but it saves the world."
I held up a second finger.
"Choice Two: Eternal Darkness. We save thy backyard, but we freeze the world."
The Elder looked at my fingers. She looked at Orla, whose face was set in grim determination—clearly ready to fight if "Eternal Darkness" was chosen. She looked at the terrified Dryads outside the window.