Chapter 102

Chapter 102 The Eastern Anomaly Esra's POV The ancient oak's roots ran deeper than kingdoms, older than the first words of power ever spoken. I pressed my palm against its bark, feeling the slow pulse of centuries flowing beneath my fingertips, and tried to make sense of what the earth itself was telling me. *Wrong,* whispered the tree's voice in my mind. *Something grows where nothing should grow. Something feeds where nothing should feed.* "How long?" I asked aloud, knowing the druids gathered in the sacred grove behind me would understand I spoke to forces beyond their perception. The oak's response came not in words but in images—flashes of the eastern borderlands where reality seemed to fray at the edges. I saw shadows that cast their own light, flowers that bloomed in reverse, streams that flowed uphill toward sources that didn't exist on any mortal map. Three days. The disturbances had been growing stronger for three days. I opened my eyes to find Marcus Greenvale, my second-in-