The ground shifted once more beneath them. Not with the violence of an earthquake, but with a more intimate, more revolting motion as if the land itself were growing a spine. The Queen's roots, thick as torsos and slick with coagulated sap, burrowed deeper into the rockbed, curling not like tendrils but like spinal cords threading into ancient vertebrae, twisting and uncoiling like serpents beneath old skin, harrowing and upturning the grotto floor. The grotto groaned beneath her, and the soil that had once seemed solid now yielded like soft tissue. Jagged stone buckled and heaved aside, smeared wet with greenish fluid, as if her presence softened the very laws of matter.
Each movement sounded like marrow cracking open. No wind, no echo, just the squelch and scrape of roots driving down through unseen flesh. They didn't crawl. They plunged. No searching. No hesitation. As if the island itself had long since been hollowed, waiting for her to return.
