Flora Nightingale's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

After Thistle Moonglow successfully awakened the ancient Forest’s Heart, the forest begins to stir—but the restoration is incomplete. Some places bloom again. Streams begin to glow beneath the moonlight. Ancient trees remember how to whisper. But in the deepest parts of the forest, the magic is still fading. Flora, MistVale Hollow’s Wildwood Witch must discover why. Flora notices animals behaving strangely. Birds refuse to fly toward the northern woods. Deer gather around the same ancient tree every night. Flowers close whenever the wind blows from the north. Flora knelt and touched a closed bloom. It trembled. Whatever slept beneath the roots had opened one eye, but the rest of the forest still dreamed a bad dream. Then she heard it. A voice, thin as thread, sliding out of the northern dark. "If the Heart has awakened, why does the forest still dream?" Flora looked around her but could see nobody around her. She rose. She did not run. She followed the sound toward the place the birds refused to go. A towering silver owl waited on a low branch, feathers marked with pale crescents. Orwyn. She had met him twice before, always when she was lost, always leaving before she could thank him. He watched her now with the patience of something older than the trees. He dropped a single silver feather quill at her feet, its shaft etched with fine curling lines. "You will want to write down what you find," he said. "Memory is the first thing the shadows take." Then he lifted the small brass lantern hooked in one talon and set it swinging toward the dark. The lantern's flame burned white, steady. Flora lifted the feather and stepped past the tree line. With each step deeper, the flame shivered and turned blue, and a low hum rose inside the glass. The lantern was pointing at a secret. Ahead, just beyond the trees, the dark thickened until it took a shape. She could not quite see what it was but it scared her. Flora's chest tightened. This was the dream the forest could not wake from. "What are you?" she asked. The Shadow whispered "I am what the Heart forgot. Answer me, witch, and I will let one root wake: I am fed by remembering and starved by the forgotten. Wake me, and I grow. What am I?" The blue flame guttered. The wildflowers behind Flora snapped shut. She gripped the silver feather until its edge bit her palm. The Heart had woken, yes. But it had woken this too. She had come to heal MistVale Hollow. Now she had to solve it first.