SWNOVELXO Chapter 47: The One Who Remembered
It was the scent that arrived first.
Not wind. Not rain. Not magic.
Just… lavender.
Subtle, crisp. Out of place in the heavy pine-and-moss blend of the sanctuary's borders.
Rei paused mid-swing, sickle in hand, halfway through trimming the edge of a wildroot patch.
He looked up.
Zephyr lifted his head from the orchard slope.
Fluff, digging near the herb bed, froze—ears up, tail down.
The sanctuary rustled.
Not in alarm.
In recognition.
As if someone very old had just stepped onto its soil and it remembered them, even if Rei didn't.
—
The visitor appeared at the outer ring just past mid-morning.
She was tall, robed in layers of travel-worn silk that shimmered faintly with runes half-lost to time. Her hair was streaked with white—not from age, but from knowledge. Her staff wasn't wood, or bone, or crystal. It was root—alive, blooming with violet blossoms even in the heat.
And when she stepped onto the main path, the stones didn't shift.
They settled.
As if she belonged.
Ellyn was the first to meet her.
The woman bowed her head slightly. "Is this still called the Sanctuary of the Forgotten Root?"
Ellyn blinked. "No one calls it that anymore."
"Shame. It's the right name."
—
Rei met her at the archway.
He did not smile. Did not welcome her.
But he nodded.
And she smiled at him like she knew him anyway.
"It still remembers me," she said, touching one of the vines curling along the old stone arch. "Even after so long."
"You've been here before."
"A lifetime ago."
"Why come back now?"
She looked at him.
"You've reawakened something."
His silence stretched.
"The land was sleeping," she said softly. "Now it dreams."
—
They sat by the stream later, tea in hand.
Lynna, Ferren, and Ellyn lingered near the edge of hearing, pretending not to listen.
Fluff lay across Rei's lap, wide awake but pretending otherwise.
The woman sipped. "You've made it kinder than it was."
"It's not a weapon."
"No. But it was. Once."
Rei didn't flinch.
"And you," she said gently, "are not what you pretend to be."
He met her eyes.
Calm. Measured. Careful.
"But you are trying to be."
"That's enough," Rei said. "For now."
She nodded, approvingly. "Then may I stay a night? Just one."
Rei didn't answer. But the sanctuary did.
A low breeze rolled through the orchard.
The flowers near her feet bloomed out of season.
A seat of moss rose beneath the old birch.
"I'll take that as a yes," she smiled.
—
That evening, they dined together.
Lynna made sure the woman's tea wasn't poisoned.
Auron tried (and failed) to identify her staff's enchantments.
Ferren called her "Lady Rootwitch" until she hexed his boots to squeak like ducks.
She offered Ellyn a silver pendant.
"A memory anchor," she said. "It's not enchanted. But it remembers what it sees."
Ellyn held it like something sacred.
Later, Rei walked her through the orchard.
She traced the scars in the bark with her fingertips.
"Some of these trees are older than your bones," she said.
"I know."
"But they remember you like they were planted yesterday."
"I didn't ask for that."
She laughed. "No one ever asks for worship, dear. But it doesn't stop things from kneeling."
—
That night, Rei woke before dawn.
He stood in the field, barefoot, feeling the air.
The sanctuary hummed around him.
Not warning.
Not welcoming.
Waiting.
The woman stood under the elder tree, her staff planted like a flag.
She turned when he approached.
"You built it well," she said.
"I didn't build it. I just asked for a place to rest."
"And it gave you this."
She turned to him.
Her eyes—bright, stormy, soft.
"Be careful, boy. Power that sleeps willingly is power that awakens hungry."
Rei looked at the sky.
The stars shimmered above the orchard.
"I'm not the one who's hungry," he said.
And the ground beneath them pulsed once.
Steady.
Alive.
Silent.
—
By morning, she was gone.
No goodbyes.
No trace.
Just a single violet flower blooming on the windowsill of Rei's room.
And a whisper, caught in the morning wind.
"Not forgotten. Just waiting."