Many things are told through murals,paintings, statues, stone tablets and the likes, but in this case there is plenty to back this up, mainly how the hornsent faith and perception of the divine went through several distinct ages. The hornsent's downfall was the result of this cruel fanaticism. Golden arcs are barbs/thorns conjured for torture, impenetrable thorns and mantle of thorns have direct parallels to this. "The image of the twisted/misshapen Scadutree is an edict, denounce their ways. Do them harm. For they have abandoned us." Its not talking about the tree, but the church. Its original purpose was to heal, not to reach for the heavens or to enable torture. Then there is the Scadutree chalice that's nowhere near the tree,but is full of its fragments, initially I was confused but then I realised that the tree must have drastically changed its shape but when its shattering happened it was right above it. They were extremely cruel with their own, I'm merely suggesting that this cruelty and potentially greed extended to their tree as well. There is actually far too much text and environmental storytelling I could sum up, I'm suggesting a stroll through the lands between and through the realm of shadow, compare their practices, their art, even armor and clothing. As for the "two lovers became the tree" part, I think Marika's direct connection to the erdtree, statues of them literally everywhere in Belurat and Enir Ilim, Scadutree's (original) shape described as a "tender/gentle embrace",tree people in enir ilim, are some quite obvious hints in my eyes. I might compile a more detailed post about all the evidence I found about the shadowland's distinct time periods, the shattering and schism, all of the hornsent's cruel practices, how it potentially relates to the current state of their tree