The forest at dawn was still, as if holding its breath. Mist clung to the undergrowth, drifting low between tree trunks, pale against the darker shapes of roots and moss. A thin silver glow touched the canopy above, but the sun had not yet shown itself. It was the hour before light truly claimed the world, when everything felt softer and slower, yet edged with waiting.

  Nethira walked carefully, staff in hand, each step measured so she would not disturb more than she must. Her auburn hair had been braided and rested against her shoulder, contrasting with her deep green skin. She carried a satchel tied close to her side, filled with herbs, twine, and the small tools her grove had given her. The vines wrapped around her staff were fresh and still green, blessed only the night before. She could feel their dampness against her palm, as if the forest wanted to remind her she did not go alone.

  But the reminder did not steady her as much as she hoped.

  Her heart was uneasy, not because she feared the forest, but because she had stepped across its boundary. Behind her lay the grove, the safety of old trees and roots she had known since her first breath. Ahead lay the world beyond, where dreams had shown her fire, ruin, and faces she could not name.

  She paused where the trees began to thin, mist curling around her ankles. She closed her eyes. It is only the first step, she told herself. The first step always feels hardest. After that, the path carries you.

  When she opened her eyes again, she saw them waiting.

  Two figures stood where the grove gave way to the wider wood. They were not strangers—at least, not strangers to the forest—but they were new to her.

  The first wore a cloak the color of river clay, plain and heavy, though the morning dew already darkened it at the hem. She was tall and broad-shouldered. Her braid was thick, and someone had woven thistle flowers into it. Her eyes were brown and warm, the shade of chestnuts in late summer. When she smiled, it was small but honest.

  “I am Ylla,” she said, placing a hand over her chest. “Healer of the western sisters. My hands mend wounds. My teas ease pain. I know the plants that keep us walking when our strength falters. That is what I bring.”

  Nethira dipped her head politely, though she noticed the woman’s eyes lingered on her staff, curious but not unkind.

  The second figure stood with a different presence. His stillness was deliberate, as if every movement was chosen. He wore garments woven from nettle fibers, soft against his skin but silent in the breeze, dyed the deep gray of dusk. Across his back hung a long piece of driftwood carved with spirals, and at his collar were feathers that moved though no wind touched them.

  When he spoke, his voice was soft but carried a weight that made her listen closely. “I am the Seeker. That name is enough. I serve the old flows. I do not lead, but I watch. I follow what the land shows me.”

  His eyes met hers. They were sharp, golden in the dim light, like the gaze of an owl that sees through leaves and distance. She felt both measured and understood, though part of his stare felt distant, as though he lived with one foot already in another world.

  “I can call light without fire,” he continued, “in colors that do not frighten beasts. I can ask the birds what they have seen, though they give answers only when it pleases them. And I can hear rivers, even through stone. They speak slowly, but they speak true.”

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Nethira swallowed lightly. She shifted her staff in her grip, then spoke. “I am Nethira, of the plane tree’s roots. The forest sometimes speaks through me, though I do not always understand its voice. Dreams find me, whether I invite them or not. Dreams of fire, of loss, of change.”

  Her words fell into the mist. None of them answered right away.

  Finally, Ylla nodded. “The Matron sent word of you. She said the forest had chosen you, though she did not say why.”

  Nethira felt her face grow warm, but she did not lower her gaze. “I do not know why either. I only know that the dreams stay, even when I wish they would leave.”

  The Seeker shifted slightly, kneeling to press his hand flat against the earth. He stayed that way for a long time, as if listening. When he rose, he spoke again. “The land here is calm. But three days south, the hum grows wrong. The birds change their flight paths. The rivers pull away from their banks. Something disturbs them.”

  Ylla folded her arms. “That is why we travel south. Toward the smoke. Toward the blighted roots. Not to interfere, but to see. To know. That is the Matron’s charge.”

  “Watchers,” the Seeker agreed. “Not warriors. We observe. We return. Unless the forest commands more.”

  Nethira’s fingers tightened around her staff. “It may command more. It already has.”

  Both looked at her.

  “I dream of a village burning,” she said, voice low but steady. “I did not know its name until it came to me: Elzibar. I have never walked its roads, yet I saw its houses turn to ash. I saw a river filled with grief. I do not know if it is a memory of what has already happened, or a warning of what will come. But it lingers.”

  Ylla’s warm face darkened, her brow furrowing. “You are not the only one. Many of the young sisters have spoken of dreams they cannot understand. Even some elders wake unsettled. It is not common. The balance shifts.”

  Nethira felt a small weight lift at those words. So it is not only me. She had feared the dreams meant something broken inside her.

  The Seeker’s voice cut into her thoughts. “Dreams are not always gifts. Sometimes they are burdens placed where they will not be ignored. You saw fire because someone must carry the memory of it. Perhaps the forest chose you because you listen, even when it hurts.”

  Nethira did not answer. She only thought of the faces in her dreams, the voices that had called names she half-recognized. The ache of watching and being powerless. She wanted to argue that she had not chosen this, that she never asked for it. But the words would not leave her mouth.

  Instead, she asked, “And if we find the cause of these dreams? If we find what stirs the roots—what then?”

  No one spoke for a long time.

  Finally, Ylla said, “Then we do as healers do. We tend what we can. We ease what pain we may. If it is beyond us, we return with truth, not guesses.”

  The Seeker looked to the south, where fog lay thick over the hills. His voice was calm but firm. “Then we do as roots do. Bend if we must. Grow where we can. And remember that even the tallest oak began in the dark earth.”

  The words lingered between them.

  Nethira drew a breath. She looked once behind her, toward the grove she would not see again for many weeks. The plane tree’s branches swayed in the faint light, whispering as though in farewell.

  She turned back. “Then let us go. If the forest asks us to walk, we walk.”

  There was no oath spoken, no ritual to bind them. Only a shared silence, and then three sets of steps carrying them forward. They moved together down the slope, through moss that dampened their sound, past the last guardians of the grove. The mist closed behind them, erasing the view of the trees they had left.

  The path ahead was not yet hostile, but it was no longer known.

  And so began their journey south, three watchers bound not by choice but by the whispers of roots, the weight of dreams, and the quiet knowledge that the world itself had started to stir.