Marigold Fernwhisper's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

The lantern above Marigold Fernwhisper's door flickered again, and she knew the heart-tree was dying faster now. She lived in an old inn of mossy stone and vines, where every candle drew its light from that ancient tree. Tonight three windows had gone dark. By morning, the whole hollow might follow. Marigold pulled on her boots. Someone had to reach the tree and wake it. No one else believed they could. She had never seen the heart-tree up close. Elders spoke of a hidden grove reached by an overgrown path, but the path had swallowed itself years ago. Marigold stood at the forest edge with a lamp and a folded map. The map showed only tangled ink where the grove should be. She walked in anyway. Brambles closed behind her. She pushed through thorns until her hands bled. Every trail split and doubled back. Twice she found her own footprints. The forest wanted to keep its secret, and it was winning. Her lamp burned lower with each dead end. Then a small creature stepped into the light. It was a puppy with a soft pink and purple coat, no bigger than her two hands. It sat on the path and watched her with pale blue eyes. "You're lost too," Marigold whispered. She reached out. The pup ducked her fingers, trotted three steps, then stopped and looked back. It wanted her to follow. Marigold had nothing better. She went. The pup wove between roots she would have missed. It nosed aside a curtain of hanging vines, and behind them lay a gap in the thorns, narrow but real. Marigold squeezed through. The path opened. Her lamp caught a cluster of bright pink plants glittering along the ground like scattered glass, marking the way forward. She had never seen them before. She followed their trail deeper. The brambles thinned. The air grew warm. Marigold stepped into a wide clearing and stopped. The heart-tree stood at its center. It was vast, its trunk wider than the inn, its bark carved with old spirals. But its branches hung bare. A faint glow pulsed deep inside the wood, weak as a dying coal. It flickered in time with the failing lanterns back home. Marigold pressed her palm to the bark. It was cold. The light inside dimmed at her touch, then steadied, barely. The pup sat beside her and whined. She had found the grove. She had found the tree. But the tree was worse off than any elder had guessed. It would not rekindle from a touch or a wish. Something had drained it, and that something was still here. Around the trunk, the glittering pink plants were spreading fast, their roots sunk deep into the tree's own bark. Marigold knelt and studied where root met wood. The plants weren't growing near the tree. They were feeding on it.