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By Root 384 0

places on Khorvaire—lush and temperate, filled with color and wildlife. What stood before them was a pale shadow. The trees were the first actual living vegetation Thorn had seen since they’d entered the Mournland, but they were just barely alive. Only a few of the trees had any leaves, and there were no sounds of wildlife, not even insects in the air. Thorn saw motion out of the corner of her eye, and she thought it was a snake winding its way up the trunk of a tree. Closer inspection revealed a more disturbing truth. It was a long vine, tipped with an ugly barb.

“Roots, unless I miss my guess,” Cadrel said. “There’s no sustenance from the sun, and who knows if there’s any rain to be had here … or if there is, if the trees can benefit from it. I imagine it seeks sustenance from other sources.”

A new voice rang out through the woods, strong and confidant. “You have good eyes, mortal man. Perhaps I’ll let you keep one of them.”

Thorn cursed and traced a cross on Steel’s hilt. “Back to back, all of you.” She could see shadows all around them. How could she have missed them before? Had they been truly invisible, or were they simply that good at the arts of stealth? She reached into her pouch, calling for the fireball wand she’d taken from Cazalan Dal, and her fingers closed on empty air. The wand wasn’t in her pack anymore.

“Don’t!” Drix shouted. “Don’t hurt them. These are my friends.”

Thorn wasn’t sure who he was trying to protect. “We mean you no harm,” she called.

“Your intentions matter little to me,” the voice said. The speaker stepped out from behind the trunk of a dying tree. He was lean and graceful, clad in a tunic made from overlapping crimson leaves. His face was hidden behind the visor of his helm, which was carved from darkwood and bore the curling horns of a woodland tribex. He held a long spear in one hand, both head and shaft made from a single piece of polished darkwood. “We are guardians of this path. This one has been here before, and we will not bar his way. But you, leave now and leave in peace, or stay and become our prey.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time you struck an innocent, from what I’ve heard,” Thorn said. She heard a rustling around her, the murmured voices of the other guardians. “And I assure you, I won’t fall alone.” Behind her, she heard Essyn Cadrel draw his blade.

“Stop!” Drix stepped in front of her. “We’ve been called. We’re here to save the tree.”

The guardian lowered his spear, leveling it at Thorn. “We knew you would return, Marudrix the Maimed. But you were never to show others the way.”

“One other,” Drix said. He turned to Thorn. “Show them.”

It took a moment for Thorn to realize what he was talking about. A stone wrapped in thorn. She turned her neck and pulled back her head. “This better be enough,” she said. “I’m not showing the other one.”

There was another torrent of whispers, voices murmuring in the shadows. Thorn couldn’t quite hear the words, but the sounds were all she needed. In Droaam, she’d been able to spot an invisible sorcerer by the sounds he made and the changes in the pressure in the air. Drawing on those senses was much like opening her eyes; the challenge was to trust her instincts, to let her subconscious paint a picture. If she tried to fight it, to control it, the flood of information was overwhelming. She just listened and let those whispering voices tell her about her hidden foes. Once she was truly listening, she could hear far more than just voices. She could hear a boot shift against soft soil, the sound of a gloved hand changing its grip on a spear, a bowstring held taut. She could even smell them, faint scents of leather and sweat: six of them, using the trees for cover, two archers.

The whispers revealed the presence of the hidden foes, but Thorn’s eyes were locked on the knight in the horned helm. He was surprised to see the stone in her neck. It took him a moment to recognize it for what it was. “Taeli sha,” he whispered, an Elven phrase Thorn had heard often in her childhood in Wroat … This cannot be! He took a step forward, and for a