The forest should have been silent.

  Aerin Vale stood ankle-deep in fallen petals, listening to a sound that didn’t belong—breathing.

  Not wind. Not insects. Breathing. Slow and steady, as though the forest itself slept beneath the soil.

  He tightened his grip on the rusted shortblade at his side and forced himself forward.

  The Luneblossom Grove lay just beyond the trees, a place beginners avoided and veterans mocked. Too shallow for real treasure, too strange for comfort. A failed ruin, they called it. A place where nothing ever happened.

  That was exactly why Aerin was here.

  His adventurer’s badge—iron rank, scratched and dull—felt heavier than it should. Three years of contracts, and all he had to show for it were minor wounds, minor pay, and a reputation for being reliable but forgettable.

  No one noticed forgettable people.

  Except, apparently, the forest.

  The breathing grew louder as he entered the clearing.

  At its center stood a flower.

  It rose from cracked stone, impossibly tall, its petals pale silver veined with soft green light. Vines curled protectively around its stem, as though shielding it from the sky itself. The air shimmered, thick with old mana—dense, ancient, patient.

  Aerin swallowed.

  “Just a plant,” he muttered. “Definitely not cursed.”

  He took one step closer.

  The world tilted.

  Pressure bloomed behind his eyes, gentle but insistent, like fingers brushing dust from a long-sealed window. Images pressed against his thoughts—not his. A blue sky split by falling stars. Roots screaming as they burned. A voice crying out, not in fear, but grief.

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  He staggered back, gasping.

  The flower pulsed.

  Then, softly—so softly he almost missed it—a voice whispered inside his mind.

  You heard me.

  Aerin froze.

  “I… what?”

  The petals trembled, light flickering unevenly, like a heartbeat struggling to find rhythm.

  No one listens anymore.

  His blade slipped from numb fingers and clattered against stone.

  Spirits were legends. Florins were myths. Talking flowers were the kind of thing adventurers joked about before getting robbed.

  And yet—

  “You’re real,” he said hoarsely.

  A pause.

  So are you, the voice replied. That is rarer than you think.

  The vines loosened.

  A single petal drifted down, brushing Aerin’s wrist.

  Warmth surged through him—not strength, not power, but connection. A thread snapped into place inside his chest, as though something dormant had finally found its purpose.

  A soft chime echoed through the grove.

  Bloom Resonance Established.

  Florin: Unknown (Dormant).

  Bond Depth: 1%.

  Aerin stared at the glowing script only he could see.

  “…You’re going to get me killed,” he whispered.

  The flower’s light brightened faintly, amused.

  Then stay alive, it said. I have waited too long to bloom again.

  Beyond the grove, the forest shifted.

  Something had noticed.

  And for the first time in years, Aerin Vale smiled.