Thornwick Mossweaver's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The prince's smile stayed with Thornwick down the woven stair. He had a sponsor. He also had a problem. Thalindor had signed on the strength of a story about silent trees, and the trial opened at dawn. If the archdruids asked for proof before the reader called his name, Thornwick had none. A dying grove three days south was not proof. A staff that listened was not proof. He needed something he could set on the table. He found Thalindor on a low balcony of the great tree, scraping the same dark stain from a fresh bowl. The old archdruid did not look up. "They'll want to see it," Thornwick said. "Before they let me stand." "They will." "I have three days of walking and a story." "Then bring back more than a story." Thalindor set the bowl down. "There's a stand of young oak an hour north of here. Same rot, first signs. Go listen. Bring me what you hear." "By when." "Before the trial opens." Thornwick went. The path north cut through soft ground, and by the second bend he was not alone. A small shape moved beside him in the underbrush, then ahead, then beside him again. Leaves stacked like scales. Bright eyes in the green. A forest nymph, bush-shaped, watching him the way a bird watches a cat. He stopped. It stopped. He crouched and set the butt of his staff in the moss. "Show me where it's worst," he said. It turned and went. He followed. The young oaks stood in a ring at the edge of a clearing. Six were still listening. The seventh was not. Thornwick set his palm against its bark and waited for the small hum that ran under everything in a living tree. Nothing came back. He pressed his staff against the root instead. The staff went cold in his hand, then colder, and something moved under the bark like a thread being pulled the wrong way. He worked the tip of his knife into a split in the root and pried. A thin black fiber came out with the wood. It was not rot. Rot was soft. This was woven. It kept its shape in his palm. The nymph made a low sound and stepped back into the leaves. Thornwick wrapped the fiber in a strip torn from his sleeve. He walked back faster than he had come. Thalindor took the bundle on the balcony and opened it with the point of a fingernail. He looked at the fiber a long time. "That's not from a tree," he said. "No." "Someone's doing this." "Yes." Thalindor closed his hand around the fiber. "I'll show the archdruids at dawn. You'll stand." He glanced up the stair, toward the balcony where a blue cloak had passed twice while they spoke. "And now we know why the prince is watching."