For several minutes, none of them moved.
The city stood in the distance beneath the strange golden sky, its towers rising above the alien forest like something pulled from a forgotten age.
Mark studied it carefully.
No smoke.
No movement.
No lights.
Nothing that suggested anyone still lived there.
Yet it didn't look ruined.
That bothered him more.
"How far?" Caleb asked.
Elena lowered the binoculars.
"Maybe six miles."
Caleb sighed. "Of course it is."
The Keeper remained near the doorway behind them.
He had spent so many years surrounded by the cool darkness of the Aurelith that the sunlight seemed almost uncomfortable to him.
Mark noticed.
"You okay?"
The Keeper looked at the sky.
"I'd forgotten how large it was."
"The sky?"
"Everything."
Behind them, the opening into the Aurelith began to close.
Lily turned.
"Wait."
The living roots slowly folded together.
The silver-blue light disappeared.
Within seconds, the doorway was gone.
Nothing remained except an enormous wall of intertwined roots.
Caleb stared at it.
"So much for going back."
The Keeper shook his head.
"The Aurelith decides when doors open."
"That's reassuring."
"It wasn't meant to be."
They started toward the city.
At first, the journey was almost peaceful.
The landscape was unlike anything they had crossed before.
Plants grew in impossible forms without appearing impossible.
Some carried broad translucent leaves filled with tiny floating chambers of gas, allowing them to lift toward the sunlight.
Others grew close to the ground in spiraling colonies, each plant connected to the next by thin silver runners.
Elena stopped beside one.
"Look."
When her shadow crossed the colony, every spiral rotated toward her.
Caleb stepped beside her.
They rotated again.
"Following the light?"
Elena shook her head.
"The light didn't move."
She stepped left.
The plants turned left.
Right.
They turned right.
"They're following me."
Mark looked across the surrounding field.
Hundreds of the spirals had turned toward them.
"Let's keep moving."
Nobody argued.
Farther ahead they encountered towering plants with hollow stalks.
Each stood twenty feet tall and carried a crown of thin, ribbonlike structures that floated despite the absence of wind.
As the group passed beneath them, the ribbons folded downward.
Watching.
Lily stopped.
"Do you feel that?"
Mark already did.
The peaceful valley no longer felt empty.
It felt occupied.
Not by animals.
By the garden itself.
The Keeper watched the plants carefully.
"The memories never showed this."
Elena looked at him.
"What did they show?"
"Travelers crossing the valley."
"And the plants?"
"Still."
That stopped everyone.
Mark looked back.
The spiraling colonies were still facing them.
Every one.
"Maybe they react to movement."
The Keeper shook his head.
"Maybe."
But he didn't sound convinced.
They continued.
The city slowly grew larger.
What had appeared to be towers from a distance became enormous structures built from pale stone and dark metallic material.
Some rose hundreds of feet.
Others curved outward like opening flowers.
Bridges stretched impossibly between them.
No roads were visible.
Only wide green corridors leading toward the city.
Lily suddenly stopped.
"Someone's walking with us."
Caleb turned immediately.
"Where?"
She pointed toward the forest.
Nothing moved.
Mark waited.
Then he saw it.
A ripple.
Not through the trees.
Through the plants beneath them.
One after another, leaves folded inward in a line running parallel to the group.
Something was moving through the vegetation.
Keeping pace.
Caleb reached for the metal tool he still carried.
"That's not the garden."
The Keeper's expression hardened.
"No."
The movement stopped.
Everything became still.
Then a plant directly ahead of them opened.
It stood waist-high, with six broad leaves surrounding a dark central cavity.
The leaves unfolded slowly.
Inside was a small translucent sphere.
It began glowing.
Lily stepped closer.
"Lily," Mark warned.
"I know."
She crouched several feet away.
The sphere brightened.
An image appeared inside it.
Faint.
Distorted.
But recognizable.
Five figures.
Walking through the valley.
Them.
Elena stared.
"It's showing us ourselves."
The image changed.
The five figures continued toward the city.
Then—
A sixth figure appeared behind them.
Tall.
Thin.
Following.
The image vanished.
Caleb spun around.
Nothing.
Mark searched the landscape.
Empty.
The Keeper approached the plant.
"I've seen these in the memories."
"What are they?" Elena asked.
"Veyra."
The alien name came naturally from him.
"Memory flowers."
Lily looked at the darkened sphere.
"So it showed us something that already happened?"
The Keeper didn't answer.
Lily noticed.
"Keeper?"
He slowly looked toward the city.
"Veyra don't remember the past."
Mark felt his stomach tighten.
"What do they remember?"
The Keeper's answer was quiet.
"What's about to happen."
Nobody spoke.
The vegetation behind them rustled.
Once.
Then stopped.
Caleb stared toward the forest.
"Then who's number six?"
The Keeper's expression changed.
"I don't know."
They moved faster.
The city was less than two miles away when the first tower lit up.
A brilliant golden light appeared near its summit.
Then another tower awakened.
Then another.
Across the entire city, windows began glowing one after another.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
The city wasn't abandoned.
It was waking up.
Lily stopped walking.
A deep sound rolled across the valley.
Not a warning.
Not an alarm.
A tone.
One enormous note that vibrated through the ground.
Every plant around them folded downward simultaneously.
Mark stared.
"What are they doing?"
The Keeper slowly backed away.
"They're bowing."
"To us?"
"No."
The forest behind them suddenly became silent.
The Keeper looked toward the place where the unseen sixth traveler had been following.
His face went pale.
"They're bowing to whatever is behind us."
Lily turned.
At the edge of the forest stood a figure.
Tall.
Motionless.
Watching.
It had no weapon.
It made no move toward them.
But every living thing in the valley had lowered itself in its presence.
Then the figure raised one hand.
And from the distant city...
something answered.