The silver branches trembled as Lyara pressed her palm against the ancient Heartwood. The Luminar Stone embedded in the bark flared, sensing her presence. Behind her, the vulture-cloaked warlocks of the Dusk Order closed in, their staffs crackling with shadowfire. <\/p>\n
Lyara whispered the incantation. Roots surged like living serpents, ensnaring the warlocks mid-step. Shadows writhed as they fought, but she had no time to watch. The Heartwood hummed beneath her fingers, its magic incomplete. <\/p>\n
She reached into her satchel, retrieving the last Suntear Crystal. The dying moonlight gleamed over its surface. Placing it into the Heartwood\u2019s hollow, she felt a jolt as golden light erupted like a dawn breaking within the tree. The air warmed. The warlocks shrieked, their magic burning away. <\/p>\n
Breathless, Lyara stepped back. The Heartwood pulsed stronger now, its luminous veins spreading outward. The Withering had been stopped\u2014for now. But deep in the winds, a darker power stirred.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Heartwood awakens\u2014darkness is watching.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fantasy","category-fiction"],"_wp_attached_file":null,"_wp_attachment_metadata":null,"_thumbnail_id":"968","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}