She did this.
The Grove issingingwith her signature—bright and soft and stubborn. Not delicate anymore. Not apologetic.
Apromiserooted in grief, lit up with love.
I rise, bark splitting at my joints, vines snapping loose like old shackles.
I’m not the same.
The Groveisn’tthe same.
It’s alive again—and not in the quiet way it used to be. It’s roaring. Glorious. Untamed.
And I’m part of it.
I step out of the tree’s hollow and the worldshifts.
The Grove ripples outward in concentric waves of energy—invisible, but unmistakable.
Magic rolls through the canopy like thunder.
Then I hear it.
A sharpwhinefrom near the ward line.
And a voice—annoyed, clipped, familiar.
“What the—no, no, that’s not right?—”
Eliorin Vask.
His ward scanner—sleek, government-issue, enchanted to withstand Leyfield distortions—is vibrating violently in his grip.
I move toward him.
He’s at the Grove’s edge, brow furrowed, hitting buttons like the problem’s mechanical and notdivine.
Then the scanner sparks.
Whines.
Andexplodesin his hands—nothing deadly, just a flash of white-hot light and the sound of shattering enchantment.
He stumbles back, clutching his wrist. The metal lands smoking at his feet, useless.
I step from the shadows.
The light flickers across my skin—bark and stone and root-bound magic reawakened.
His mouth opens.
He stares at me like I’m myth made flesh.
“Impossible,” he breathes.
“No,” I say, voice low and steady. “Just forgotten.”
He backs up slowly. “What… whatareyou?”
