She walks the trail like it’s sacred ground, each step measured, as if she thinks the forest might change its mind about letting her in.
I remain hidden.
A guardian doesn’t need applause.
I watch from the high bend of the elder limb above the vine she favors—Delira’s Twist. It curls eagerly whenever she arrives. Greedy for her touch. Greedy, maybe, for her voice.
She kneels and pours something warm into the soil again. Her compost tea. I can smell the rosemary this time. And cinnamon.
Ridiculous. But the moss near the stone drinks it in like it’s ambrosia.
Her pouch opens next. Seeds. Light ones. She scatters them gently, whispering names I can’t quite hear. She sings under her breath when she thinks no one’s listening. She’s wrong.
I listen toeverything.
I was grown for this.
Every day she’s here, the tree at my backshifts.
The ward pulses faintly when she’s near.
I feel it in my core, where the bond between my spirit and the living tree coils tight like a rope around my ribs. When she kneels in that glade, something tugs.
Not painfully. Just enough to make me feelhumanagain.
I don’t like it.
But I don’t stop it.
“Didn’t think I’d see you today,” she murmurs once, smiling faintly to herself. “Rough night, huh?”
She’s talking to the vine. I know it. But the pulse of warmth under my ribs twists anyway.
She pours a little water into the moss ring, then leans back on her heels, content to justbe.
She never asks the Grove for anything.
She only gives.
That’s what I don’t understand.
The other humans—they come to take. Take photos. Take stories. Take power. But she kneels in the dirt and reads aloud from an old journal like she’s feeding a hungry mouth.
Sometimes she brings fruit. A small tomato. A slice of peach. She sets it down like an offering to something bigger than her.
Maybe she’s right to.
I crouch lower, peering between branches.
The tree behind me—the one I’m bound to—vibrates faintly.
It’s not pain. Not sickness.
It’s… anticipation.
As if evenitwonders what she’ll do next.
I curl my fingers into the bark at my side. The warmth of her presence makes my hands ache.
