He'd saved them.
So why did they look at him like he was the next problem?
Ethan Cross hit the dead elm entrance at 4:06 a.m., breath misting in the cold air, jacket half-zipped, hands shoved into his pockets like that made him less visible.
It didn't.
Two guards stood at the base of the spiral stair—both Verdant Users, both armed with vine-wrapped spears, both staring at him like he'd tracked mud onto a clean floor.
Not relief.
Fear.
"Ethan Cross," the taller one said slowly. "You're… back."
"Yeah." Ethan didn't stop walking. "Was I supposed to send a postcard?"
The guard didn't laugh. His fingers tightened on the spear shaft.
The other guard—shorter, younger—cleared his throat. "Sylvia wants to see you. Immediately."
Ethan took the first step down the spiral staircase carved into the hollow trunk.
The air shifted as soon as he passed the threshold. Cooler. Damp. Alive. The sanctuary always smelled like moss and wet soil and chlorophyll.
Tonight, it smelled like tension.
"How long have you been waiting up?" Ethan asked without turning.
The younger guard hesitated. "Everyone's awake."
Ethan paused on step twelve.
"Why?"
Silence. Then the tall guard said it, bluntly. "You killed Briar."
Ethan's jaw tightened. His shoulders went stiff. He kept walking.
"I killed a Thornbound Harvester who murdered twenty-three of our people," Ethan said. "You're welcome."
No response.
Just a faint shift in posture—like both of them were recalculating distance and escape routes.
Ethan felt his irritation rise, hot and fast. Not guilt. Not shame. Just the raw, ugly feeling of being treated like a bomb after doing exactly what they'd begged him to do.
His vision flickered.
The interface didn't fully open. Just a thin overlay, like Sylvara was peeking around the corner.
[LE: 500/500]
[Primordial Integration: 48%]
[Evolution Points: 107]
[Emotional Status: Irritated]
↳ Sylvara: They're scared because you're winning. Humans hate that.
Ethan exhaled through his nose.
"They should be grateful," he muttered.
↳ Sylvara: Should be. Aren't. Power makes people religious or paranoid. Sometimes both.
He reached the bottom of the staircase.
The sanctuary looked the same—root-woven arches, bioluminescent vines, the cultivated garden in the center like a deliberate act of defiance against the world upstairs.
But the air had changed.
People clustered in knots. Whispering. Watching.
When Ethan walked past, conversations cut off mid-sentence. Eyes tracked him.
Not friendly eyes.
Assessing eyes.
Measuring eyes.
As if he might turn at any moment and start draining them, too.
Ethan's skin prickled. Not with fear.
With anger.
He'd bled for these people. He'd almost died in their tunnels. He'd killed a monster they couldn't handle. And now—
Now he was the monster in their story.
The overlay sharpened for half a second.
[Sanctuary Population: 41 (down from 43)]
[Morale: 34% (↓12% since your last visit)]
[Threat Perception of YOU: 67%]
↳ Sylvara: Congratulations. You are now the scariest thing in the room. 🌱
Ethan's fingers twitched.
He forced them still.
He kept walking.
The council chamber waited at the northern end—smaller than the garden, tighter, root-walls pressed close like the sanctuary itself wanted to hear the fight.
Inside, Sylvia Chen sat at the center table. Silver hair braided back. Green eyes hard. Calm on the outside in the way only exhausted leaders could be calm.
Kaito stood beside her. The Elder didn't sit. He rarely did. His presence filled the room without him moving an inch.
Mira Chen leaned against the root-wall, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
And there were others.
Five council members. One of them—Lena Vasquez—was already glaring at Ethan like he was a mistake someone refused to correct.
"Ethan," Sylvia said. "Sit."
"I'd rather stand."
"Sit," Kaito said. Quiet. The kind of quiet that made the air heavier.
Ethan sat.
He hated that his chair creaked.
He hated that everyone noticed.
Sylvia folded her hands. "You killed Briar."
"Yes."
"Alone."
"Yes."
"Without authorization."
Ethan blinked, slow. "I didn't know I needed permission to not get harvested."
Lena leaned forward. "You didn't just defend yourself. You escalated the war."
"They escalated it when they invaded us," Ethan snapped.
Sylvia's gaze didn't flinch. "Briar was a high-value Thornbound Harvester. Killing her will provoke retaliation."
Ethan leaned back in the chair, wood-grain skin pulling tight over his knuckles. "They were going to retaliate anyway. At least now they're down one Harvester."
"And we're up one target," Lena said. "You just painted a bigger bullseye on this sanctuary."
"I painted it on me," Ethan said. His voice came out colder than he meant. "Thorne wants Conduits. Fine. Let them come for me. I'll kill them too."
That word—kill—landed wrong in the room.
He felt it like a shift in temperature. Even Mira's eyes sharpened.
Kaito watched him without judgment. That was almost worse.
Sylvia's tone softened. "You've changed."
Ethan stared at her. "I adapted."
"You've become aggressive," Lena said, standing now like she needed height to match her fear. "Three days ago you could barely control your LE. Now you talk about killing like it's routine."
"It is routine," Ethan said. Flat. "They hunt us. I hunt them back."
"With who?" Lena demanded. "With what authority?"
Ethan hesitated.
Not because he didn't know the answer.
Because saying it out loud would make it real in a different way.
He glanced at Kaito.
The Elder nodded once.
Tell them.
Ethan breathed in—wet soil, old roots, damp stone.
"I made a pact," he said. "With the Primordial."
Silence.
A council member whispered, "With the First Forest?"
Lena's face went paler. "That's insane. The Primordial doesn't make deals. It consumes. You're going to turn into—"
"I'm not turning into anything," Ethan cut in, sharper now. "I'm in control."
Mira's mouth twitched like she wanted to smile and didn't allow herself.
Sylvia's eyes narrowed. "A pact means a cost. What did you promise it?"
Ethan's throat tightened.
He could lie.
He could soften it.
But the Primordial listened. Always.
"I feed it," he said. "Thornbound."
Lena flinched like he'd slapped her.
"You mean—"
"I mean I kill the people who burn the green," Ethan said. "The people who harvest Users. The people who drain us. That's the deal."
The council members stared at him.
Mira pushed off the wall. "It worked," she said. "You all saw what happened after the breach. We were dying. Ethan didn't just survive. He turned the tide."
"This time," Lena said, voice cracking. "What about next time? What happens when he loses control? When the Primordial decides we're fertilizer too?"
Kaito spoke without raising his voice. "It will not."
Lena's laugh was thin and bitter. "You can't know that."
Kaito stepped forward. Put a hand on Ethan's shoulder.
Ethan felt the pressure through bark. Warm. Heavy.
"I have seen many Conduits," Kaito said to the room. "Most fall because they surrender. They let the Primordial fill them until nothing human remains."
His lichen-white eyes flicked to Ethan. "This one negotiates. That is why he is still here."
Lena's gaze snapped back to Sylvia. "Then vote."
Sylvia's jaw tightened. "Lena—"
"Vote." Lena's voice rose. "Exile Ethan Cross from Sanctuary Forty-Seven. Immediately."
Ethan stood before anyone told him to sit.
The roots under his skin pulsed. Not a glow. A pressure. He felt the plants in the garden outside. Felt the sanctuary itself.
Watching.
Waiting.
"You want me gone?" he asked quietly.
Lena took a step back. Not dramatic. Small. Instinctive.
Sylvia said, "Ethan—"
Ethan didn't look at her. "Fine. Vote."
He turned his head slightly, eyes sweeping the room. "But if I leave, Thorne doesn't forget you exist. They don't take a day off because you're scared of me."
He pointed at the root-wall as if the wall was a map. "They already know where we are. The only reason you're still breathing is because they haven't decided to spend the resources."
Lena's mouth opened. No words came out.
Ethan looked back to Sylvia. "When is the vote?"
Sylvia's voice came out quieter than before. "Tomorrow at dawn."
Ethan nodded.
And walked out.
No threats. No speeches. Just a decision.
Behind him, the room exhaled like everyone had been holding their breath.
He didn't miss Mira following. Not immediately.
He didn't miss the way she hung back, giving him distance without leaving him alone.
He went straight to the Memory Tree chamber.
The door sighed open at his touch.
Inside, the pale trunk stood in the center of the small room like a bone from something ancient. Leaves shifted in faint light. Faces formed and dissolved.
Ethan sat on the floor with his back to the wall.
He stared at the tree.
The overlay flickered again, faint.
[LE: 500/500]
[Primordial Integration: 48%]
[Emotional Status: Conflicted]
↳ Sylvara: You save people, they fear you. Classic hero dilemma. Boring. Predictable. Still sucks.
"Shut up," Ethan muttered.
↳ Sylvara: Rude. But yes, I deserve it.
The leaves moved.
A face formed.
David Park.
Ethan's stomach turned.
David had been twenty-two. Tier-1. Grew tulips. Smiled too easily. Died too fast during the breach.
The sanctuary remembered him in perfect detail.
That was the point. That was the cruelty.
Ethan stared until his eyes burned.
Then the door opened.
Mira stepped inside like she belonged in every room, including the ones meant for grief.
She didn't speak at first.
She just sat beside him on the floor, shoulder close but not touching.
Minutes passed.
Then she said, "They're afraid of you."
"I know."
"You can't blame them," Mira added. "You went from barely-awake to Harvester-killer in a week."
Ethan laughed once. It sounded wrong in the Memory Tree room. "I didn't ask for this."
"No one does." Mira leaned back against the wall, head tilted slightly as if she was listening for a threat that might come through the roots. "But you're handling it better than most."
Ethan turned his head. "Am I?"
Mira's mouth tightened. Not a smile. Something close. "You're not dead. You're not insane. You're not a tree."
Ethan stared at the Memory Tree.
"Yet."
Mira didn't argue.
She looked at David's face in the leaf, then away.
"If they exile you," she said, "you leave."
Ethan's jaw clenched. "And you stay."
Mira's eyes cut to him. "No."
Ethan blinked.
Mira's voice stayed flat, but her hand flexed once on her knee—tension bleeding through control. "If they throw you out to feel safer, they deserve what happens next. I'm not staying in a sanctuary run by fear."
Ethan swallowed. "You'd leave… for me?"
"For the cause," she said immediately.
Then, after a beat she didn't fill with excuses: "You just happen to be the cause right now."
Ethan looked at her. Tried to speak. Couldn't find the correct sentence.
The sanctuary's emergency alert hit his vision like a slap.
[ALERT: EXTERNAL THREAT DETECTED]
[Sanctuary perimeter: BREACHED]
[Unknown hostiles: 2]
[LE signatures: MASKED]
↳ Sylvara: That's… not good. That's "everyone dies" energy. 🔥
Ethan was on his feet before the overlay faded.
Mira's vines erupted from her forearms instantly, alive and ready.
"Where?" she asked.
"Eastern entrance," Ethan said.
They ran.
The eastern tunnel was chaos—guards shouting, vines thrashing, people stumbling back.
And in the center—
Two figures in crimson cloaks.
Not Thornbound cultists.
Not Concord initiates.
Something else. Cleaner. More deliberate.
They had hoods down.
One was a woman in her early thirties. Red vines pulsed beneath her skin like veins made of thorn. Her eyes were gold.
The other was a man in his fifties. His right arm was entirely replaced by thorned wood. Crimson flowers bloomed from his shoulder like a threat.
Their LE signatures hit Ethan's Root Sense like pressure in his teeth.
His interface snapped fully open for the first time in hours.
[THREAT DETECTED: Scarlet Thorn Operatives]
[LE Signatures: 1,847 (female) / 2,103 (male)]
[Faction: UNKNOWN]
[Recommendation: Do NOT engage without backup.]
↳ Sylvara: Please don't pick a fight with the walking boss fight. Please. 😨
The woman smiled at Ethan like she'd been waiting for him specifically.
"Ethan Cross," she said smoothly. "We've been looking for you."
Ethan's roots coiled under his skin, ready to punch out if he let them.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Vivienne Ashcroft," she said. "This is my partner, Gregor Tane. We represent the Scarlet Thorn Covenant."
Mira's vines lifted an inch, coiled like whips.
"Never heard of you," Ethan said.
Vivienne's smile widened. "You will."
Gregor stepped forward. His wooden arm creaked like old branches under weight.
"We have a message," he said. "From Director Elias Thorne."
Ethan's blood went cold.
"What message?"
Gregor pulled out a tablet.
Turned it toward Ethan.
The screen lit.
A live feed.
A woman tied to a metal chair. Bruised. Gagged. Glasses crooked on her face.
Middle-aged.
Familiar.
Ethan's lungs stopped working for a second. His body forgot oxygen.
"Mom," he whispered.
On screen, Diane Cross struggled against the restraints.
Behind her stood a man in a perfect grey suit. Silver hair. Calm eyes. Smile like a polite knife.
Director Elias Thorne looked straight into the camera.
And smiled.
"Hello, Ethan," Thorne said. "I believe we need to talk."