The Draconian Woman. Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Five – The Living Book The heartbeat echoed again. Slower this time. Deeper. It did not travel through the chamber. It traveled through everyone standing inside it. Serakha felt it beneath her ribs. Emma instinctively placed a hand over her chest. "Please tell me that's not my heart." The First Author smiled faintly. "If it were, you should probably see a doctor." Emma exhaled. "Good. I was worried for a second." Another heartbeat rolled through the roots of the Story Tree. The golden leaves trembled. Thousands of glowing words detached from the branches and drifted downward, gathering into a slow spiral around the trunk. None of them fell to the floor. Instead... they disappeared into the earth. As though something beneath the roots was reading them. The Guardian lowered his staff. "It has awakened completely." Liora looked toward the immense roots. "It has been listening since Serakha wrote the first sentence." Th...