Back in the embrace of the dream, the druid kept his eyes fixed upon the place where Nemoria had stood but moments before. Now that she was gone, he no longer tried to mask himself. His face was grave, his thoughts heavy with dread, the orchard darkened further as the first drop of rain struck his brow, and thunder rumbled low across the sky, shaking the branches as if the world itself shared his unease.

  Slowly, he reached into the pocket of his coat and drew forth a stone, no larger than his thumb, carved in the likeness of a mouse. Strange golden runes coiled along its surface, their shapes writhing faintly in the half-light. He set it gently upon the ground before him, and his lips parted in chant.

  The words were old, older than men’s kingdoms, older even than the forests…with each syllable, the runes began to glow, dim at first, then brighter, burning with an intensity that made the shadows recoil. His voice rose, a low song of power, and the stone quivered. The carved shape sagged and melted, stone flowing like wax before a flame. From its husk emerged a creature small and perfect, a mouse wrought of pure light. Its body shimmered, translucent yet radiant and its tiny eyes glowed like twin embers as it twitched its whiskers and waited for command.

  The mouse of light lifted its head, and though its mouth did not move, a voice filled the druid’s mind, clear as thought and yet resonant as a bell struck in a cavern. “Greetings, Sernunos...how long has it been since you last called me forth? A thousand years, perhaps…more?”

  Sernunos studied the small creature, the lines of his face shadowed beneath the storm’s gathering weight. “Closer to three good friend” he said at last, his voice deep and weary.

  “Three thousand…” the mouse mused, its whiskers twitching with faint amusement. “Time slips quick when one is not bound by it, but for you to spend such power, to pull me into this plane, can only mean one thing…”

  “I am afraid so,” Sernunos replied. His hand rested on his knee, steady though his eyes betrayed the heaviness within “though I have no proof…that is why I need you. Travel into the human world, seek out any trace of the darkness that belongs to him.”

  The mouse’s glow faltered, if only for a breath. “You do not mean… the Silent One?”

  “I do,” the druid said…His words dropped like stones. “Signs of him have been felt, by my student.”

  “Nemoria?” the mouse’s thought came sharp, incredulous. “Does she even know what to seek?”

  “I did not tell her,” Sernunos admitted, his voice low. “My heart would spare her. She was made to watch over the human world, to guard it in my stead, yet… I would keep her far from such shadows, if I could.”

  The mouse’s eyes flared, twin sparks in the storm-dark. “You cannot shape her to bear the burden and then hide its weight from her. Make up your mind, old friend.”

  “Please,” Sernunos said, bowing his head “do this for me as a favor…perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps the signs were false, and we may yet enjoy peace a while longer.”

  The mouse twitched, its light flickering like a candle in a sudden draft. “And if things are as we feared they might be?”

  Sernunos’s gaze lifted to the thickening clouds above the orchard. The thunder groaned like a great beast in its sleep. “Then I must leave this dream behind…I will summon what remains of the Conclave, and we will face what comes, Nemoria will find the truth at that time… and with it, her choice.”

  The mouse blinked once, then again, tiny embers flaring. “Very well…I will go and may the roots be deep enough that I find nothing.”

  Its body unraveled then, light scattering into the air like shards of a broken star, drawn swiftly into the storm above. The orchard shuddered under the weight of thunder, and Sernunos was left alone, his eyes still fixed upon the darkened sky.

  Nemoria descended from the high perch of the lookout, her talons clicking softly on the wooden steps, until she reached the place where the roots of the ancient tree plunged deep into the earth. Between two of those roots yawned a narrow entrance, no more than a dark seam in the bark and earth, yet it opened like the mouth of a cave. She stepped within, leaving the cold air of winter behind. The atmosphere inside was damp, warmer than outside, and heavy with the scent of earth.

  The passage sloped downward, a corridor cut by hands long vanished, its walls etched with old marks of power now dulled by centuries. She moved with the certainty of one who knew every turn, every stone, her mind already shaping the plan she would set into motion.

  As she walked, her steps slowed before a wooden door set with an iron latch. The wood was dark, its grain worn smooth, Nemoria lingered, breath held, the silence pressing close around her. For a moment she weighed the choice, then set her hand to the latch and pushed the door open.

  Inside, the chamber was dim, the old man lay where she had left him, still beneath the spell she had woven. His chest rose and fell in slow rhythm, and across it stretched a wide, circular scar, angry and red. Yet color had returned to his face, a fragile promise of life. It was a small mercy, for he had spilled more blood than most men could endure and still draw breath.

  Oakrin was the name he had spoken before he fainted…a strange name for a stranger in these lands.

  Her eyes narrowed as she studied him, memory stirring, each detail of what had transpired rising sharp and unwelcome in her mind. She had saved him from the wooden wraith, the creature’s spear of bark driven straight through his chest. It had been chance that she was nearby, watching the humans’ camp from the shadows, and chance again that the beast strayed too close to her.

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  She might have left him there, broken and dying in the dirt, but he had looked at her with a mix of wonder and delirium, thanking her as though she were some gift from the gods themselves. The man seemed certain he had little time left, and he was at peace with it. Glad he had saved his friends. Glad, too, that he had met her, a thing he had never known could exist. His voice had been faint but steady as he said, ‘Life still holds its mysteries, and I am glad to glimpse one more before I go.’”

  She had taken him in, carried his broken body to the great tree, and tended his wounds. She had closed them with her power and held him upon the edge of life, doing all she could, though she knew not why. She had no reason, no debt or bond, yet some whisper within told her this man still had a hand to play.

  And now he was a problem, she was leaving for the human world and there would be no one that could care for him.

  She could not abandon him in a human settlement…Oakrin had seen too much, a man who could speak her name, who had looked on her in her true form and lived to tell about it. She had kept him under, held in enchanted sleep, while she wrestled with the choice of what to do.

  Nemoria’s feathers stirred as she shut the door behind her, she did not linger. Her steps carried her deeper, down the sloping hall, until the scent of oil and steel began to fill the air, the armory waited ahead.

  She came at last to the door, a massive thing of iron, steel, and copper. Gears stirred at her touch, grinding to life as she pressed her hand against the latch. It yielded with a whisper, opening into a chamber she had known for centuries. Darkness greeted her, broken only by the steady glow of a single blue crystal that hung in the air above a stone dial. The crystal pulsed faintly, a heartbeat of power, and the dial beneath bore a single word, carved deep in the old tongue.

  Nemoria stepped forward, laying her palm upon the sigil, light leapt from stone to flesh, and the room dissolved.

  When her vision cleared, she now stood within the vault.

  The chamber spread in all directions, its size defying the eye, arches of stone soaring overhead, lost in shadow. They descended into columns square and immense, each one etched with ancient runes and lit with more of those floating crystals, their blue fire painting the air in cold light. Between every two columns rested another dial, twin rows running outward into the distance, each inscribed with a name.

  Nemoria did not pause, she knew what she sought, for Sernunos had taught her every secret of this place when she was still young.

  Her hand brushed the first dial, and the vault stirred, stone shifting as though the earth itself bent to her will. An amulet appeared, black chain coiled around a crystal eye, the charm that would let her wear another’s face, take on any form seen through its gaze. She took it up, cold as ice in her palm.

  She moved quickly to the second dial that brought forth a small bag, soft leather bound with twine, the weight of enchanted seeds within. Each seed carried a different fate, roots that would bind like chains, blossoms that would twist the air with poison, vines that would strangle steel. She tied it at her side, a necessary addition for the battle to come.

  The third revealed a circlet of silver thorns, gleaming faintly, too delicate to bear the malice that lived within. Place it on another’s brow, and the mind would open as a book, thoughts and memories ripe for reshaping. She lifted it with care, for even holding it made her shiver.

  Last came the boots, plain in appearance but heavy with old power, their soles bore no mark, yet they could bind themselves to three places in the world, and from each one, she might step to the others as though space itself were folded cloth.

  Her plan sharpened as she gathered them crude but effective. She would walk into the heart of the kingdom unseen. One of the High Houses would serve as her mask, its leader replaced without trace with the help of the items. From there, she would rise like smoke into the king’s circle, where secrets festered and truths were buried.

  Perhaps the king himself was blind to what his generals wrought in Iskar’s Veil. If so, then it would be swift, cutting away those who conspired, clean and quiet as a blade through silk. But if the king was complicit, if the serpent’s head was coiled at the very heart of the throne, then the path would be long and perilous. He was no man to fall easily…his own power was not small, and his guard never slackened.

  Even if she struck the king down, there was no guarantee the heir would not prove worse. She could end the bloodline entire, but that would only loose a war of succession upon the realm, and in such chaos, one more cruel, more ruthless, might rise to claim the throne. No, if the king himself was entwined in the serpent’s coils, then another path must be taken, subtle and winding, a path that cut deeper than any blade.

  She would need to unravel him, whisper against him in the dark, feed truths like poison into the ears of the people, set soldier against captain, captain against crown. Cells would rise in secret, rebellion swelling like floodwaters. In the chaos, she would move unseen, stripping away power, until none remained to stand in her path.

  It seemed simple enough in her mind, yet she knew better. Complications would come, one after another, as they always did…such was the nature of men, and of the world itself. She sighed at the tremendous task before her, one that might stretch into years. Yet her purpose was noble, and her resolve steel.

  On her way back from the armory, Nemoria slowed once more at Oakrin’s door yet she did not open it. Her hand hovered over the latch before she drew it back, her feathers stirring as though uneasy with the air itself. The man was a piece, she knew that much, though where he fit upon the board she could not yet see. Still, one truth pressed hard upon her, she would have to use him.

  A heaviness settled in her chest, Oakrin had done nothing to warrant such a fate, he had bled and prayed and clung to life, and in return she had kept him breathing. Yet now his path would be bent to hers, no matter his will.

  If she could shape him against his own kind, twist his voice to carry her tale, the kingdom itself might catch fire. Words carried faster than steel, and in the taverns of men, stories grew wings…an uprising needed only the right spark, and Oakrin could be that flame.

  The kingdom was dry kindling for it…the people wore the mask of freedom but their lives were fenced on every side. The king’s hand was iron, though at first glance it might not seem so. No man might cross the borders without sanction…No commoner might study the Art unless he endured their rigorous tests and proved himself tame enough for the leash. Soldiers marched everywhere, patrols in every village, along every road, in every forest, always watching, their numbers vast, their purpose cloaked beneath the pretense of readiness.

  The people bent beneath it, yet bore the weight in silence. They had their fields, their markets, their small joys, so long as they did not step beyond the lines drawn for them. In truth, they were free only so long as they stayed in their box.

  Yes, Oakrin could be the stone thrown into still water…his voice, his story, would ripple outward, breaking the silence men had taught themselves to keep and once loosed, it would not be stopped.

  Nemoria lingered only a breath longer before turning away, her face unreadable, though her heart carried the taste of sorrow.