The party lasted all day.By sunset, the estate garden looked like a festival from the old stories. Long tables made from living wood the Tree had grown that morning. Human farmers from Harp eating glowing fruit next to Starborn elders. Music — human guitars mixed with Starborn flutes that sounded like wind through leaves.Raven and Elara walked through it together, not as king and queen, just as themselves. People stopped them to shake hands, to bow, to thank them. Raven kept saying “please don’t bow,” but they did anyway.He found Jax near the drink tables, stacking empty cups, trying to be invisible.Jax froze when he saw Raven. “Sir— I mean, young master— I was just—”Raven put a hand on his shoulder. The old anger was gone. Through the seed, he could feel Jax clearly now — ashamed, trying, scared of being thrown out.“You good?” Raven asked simply.Jax nodded fast, eyes wet. “Yeah. They gave me work. In the kitchens. It’s… it’s good. Thank you. For not— you know.”Raven nodded. “

A month after the Wall fell, Mars didn’t look like Mars anymore.Raven stood on the roof of the old Garden water tower in Harp Sector 7 — the same tower he used to climb to eat lunch alone when he was a delivery boy. Now the tower was covered in vines, and the whole sector below was green.Where there had been red dust and gray domes, there were now gardens growing right out of the streets. The Tree had sent roots up through the old pipes, and everywhere a root touched, plants grew in hours, not months. Kids played in actual grass. Old people sat under trees that hadn’t existed last week.Elara climbed up the ladder behind him, her dark hair tied back, wearing work pants and a faded shirt — no princess dress today.“You’re late for the council meeting,” she said, handing him a bottle of water.Raven took it and grinned. “I was remembering. I used to eat stale bread up here and watch the dust trucks.”She sat next to him, legs dangling over the edge. Through their link, he felt her qui

Lyra Well was fifteen and late for history class.She jumped off the root-tram three stops early, hit the moss platform running, and tore through the gates of Wakedah Academy with her school bag slapping her back. Her black braid came loose, her violet eyes — bright with little green flecks like her father’s — were fixed on the clock tower.“Lyra, wait!” her brother Cael shouted behind her, ten years old and already out of breath. He had their mother’s dark hair and their father’s grin. “You’re gonna get detention again!”“Then run faster!” she yelled back, laughing, and vaulted over a living bench that moved out of her way.Students stepped aside without thinking. Human kids, Starborn kids, it didn’t matter anymore. Everyone knew the princess, and everyone knew she was always late.Inside the classroom, which was grown from pale bark and smelled like rain, Elder Mara tapped her staff on the floor. She was older now, her white hair thinner, but her eyes were still sharp.“Princess Lyr

The light didn’t stop.In the root pool, Raven, Elara, and Lyra stood locked together as the column of green-white energy poured up through the dome and into the sky. The roots around their arms pulsed in time with their hearts — three hearts, now beating as one.Lyra gasped. She had felt the seed all her life as a warm hum, but this was like standing inside the sun. Through the family link, she could suddenly feel everything her father felt — the whole planet, every root, every sapling, every person on Mars like a small light.She could also feel her mother’s strength holding them both steady.“Don’t let go,” Elara whispered, her voice shaking but clear.“I won’t,” Raven whispered back.Above ground, the entire estate shook gently. In Wakedah City, people ran outside and looked up as the beam from the Tree’s heart punched through the green shield and kept going, a lighthouse in space.In the war room, Lisa stared at the sensors, her hands frozen over the console.“They’ve accelerated

The ground was still warm where the ships had grown.Raven stood on the edge of Field Seven outside Wakedah, Elara on his left, Lyra and Cael on his right, watching the 150 living vessels breathe. That was the only word for it. Their green-gold hulls expanded slowly, then contracted, like lungs. Veins of light ran along their sides, pulsing in time with the planetary shield above.They had no sharp edges. No gun turrets. They looked more like giant seed pods than warships.Kira walked up the hull of the nearest one without a ramp — the ship simply grew steps under her boots. She knocked on the side. It sounded like wood and metal at the same time.“It’s alive,” she said, half in awe, half in disbelief. “Lisa says the scans show no engine, no reactor, no weapons. Just… plant matter and energy.”“It has what it needs,” Raven said quietly. He could feel each ship through the seed, like feeling 150 new fingers. They were sleepy, newborn, waiting for a crew.Lyra stepped forward before any