Astaria Thornweave's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Astaria planted through the night, but the troll's warning stayed in her ears. One word she knew: danger. The rest were old-tongue sounds she could not read. Something heavy moved toward the valley. She did not know what, or how soon. She could not fight a threat she could not name. So at dawn she left her chest of seeds and climbed the peaks again. She found the old druid where she had left him, seated on bare rock, moss on his shoulders. Aldric Stonepeak did not open his eyes as her shadow fell over him. "You came back too fast," he said. "A grove needs tending, not a second climb." "The troll spoke words I don't know," Astaria said. She knelt and repeated the sounds as best she could, low and slow, the way he had taught her. Her voice cracked on the last one. Aldric's eyes opened. He sat straighter than she had seen before. "Say it again," he said. She did. He listened to the end, then rubbed his beard. Moss flaked from his sleeve. "You spoke it wrong in three places," he said. "But I understand it. The troll did not warn you of an enemy." He paused. "It warned you of a sleeper. Something old woke under your valley. The trolls call her the one who rules the deep roots." Astaria's hands went cold. "A person?" "A queen," he said. "Older than the mountains. She sleeps in the earth for ages. When she stirs, the ground shakes and the deep roots move. Your seeds woke her. She rises to see who planted them." "Is she coming to destroy my grove?" Aldric shook his head slowly. "I do not know her mind. No one living has met her. The troll only felt her turn in her sleep." He gripped her wrist with a hard, dry hand. "Do not run from her. She will feel that as a threat. Stand where you planted. Let her come to you." "That's all?" Astaria pulled back. "Stand and wait?" "That is the hardest thing I can teach," he said, and closed his eyes again. She climbed down with the answer heavy in her chest. Now she knew the name of the thing that shook the stone. A queen woke by her own hand, by the seeds she carried a hundred miles. The grove had called something she could not command. At the valley's edge the troll still sat. Its hollow eyes turned to her as she passed. She reached her chest of seeds and stopped. The ground trembled under her boots. Not the troll's step. Deeper. Steady. Something vast turned far below the soil and began to rise toward the light. Astaria set her feet in the ash-dark earth and made herself stand still.