Grunk Mossbeard knelt on bare rock and pushed an acorn into a crack. He wanted one thing: a hidden grove where every chased-off creature could stay for good. But the stone was hard as an anvil. No root would grip it. The acorn rolled out and clicked away downhill. Grunk squeezed it in his warty green fist until his knuckles cracked. Moss dripped from his hood. His red beard tangled tighter as he ground his teeth. He had chosen this spot because nobody else wanted it. That was the point. No farmer, no hunter, no angry mob would climb up here to drive off his misfits. But the same barren rock that kept people away kept plants away too. Grunk had tried moss, ferns, even wild onion. All of them died on the stone, thirsty and rootless. He hauled two heavy sacks up the slope. Rich dark loam bulged against the rough cloth, and earthy grains dusted his arms. He dumped both sacks across the rock and spread the soil with his hands. Then he waited three days. The thin layer dried, cracked, and blew off in the wind. The rock stayed bare beneath it. Grunk kicked the empty sacks and roared at the empty sky. So he went to find the one person who might know. Down in the valley stood an old waterwheel mill, its weathered wood grown over with green, its stone base slick with damp. The hedge witch lived there now. Grunk had heard the whispers: she could coax life from lifeless things. Villagers feared her. That suited Grunk fine. He feared nobody, and he owed nobody, and that was how he liked it. He pounded on the mill door. It opened to a tiny figure in a ragged green cloak, hood up, a bone-topped staff in one hand. Morna Blackthorn looked up at the huge troll without a flicker of fear. "You're the one hauling dirt up a dead rock," she said. "Everyone's laughing." "Let them," Grunk growled. "You know how to grow plants on stone. Tell me." Morna leaned on her staff and studied him. "Soil blows away because there's no water to hold it," she said. "Your rock is dry as bone. Plants need to drink." She pointed her staff past the turning wheel, toward a dark seam in the hillside where water trickled and pooled. "A spring feeds this mill. Its water runs under the whole ridge. Find where it surfaces near your rock, and your grove will drink." Grunk's chest loosened. For the first time in weeks, he saw a way through. "But mind this, troll," Morna added. "That spring isn't empty. Something drinks there already. It won't share." Grunk turned toward the ridge, the answer clear at last, and a new fight waiting at the water's edge.

Grunk found where the water surfaced. A crack split the rock at the foot of his ridge. Cold air breathed out of it, and far below he heard water lapping in the dark. He raised his shovel to dig it wider. Then he stopped. Morna's warning rang in his head. Something drinks there. It won't share. He did not know what waited in that black water. If he dug blind, he might wake it, and it might drown him before he saw it. So he wrapped a stick in glowing moss and lit it. The moss burned green and steady, a cold light that threw no smoke. He lowered the torch into the crack and pressed his face to the cold stone. The light showed a pool below, black and still. Then the water rippled. A small blue figure rose from it, no taller than Grunk's arm. Mud caked its skin. Thin wings dripped behind its shoulders, and a twig with two green leaves stuck up from its wet hair. It blinked up at the green light with huge eyes. "You're the digger," the sprite said. Its voice was thin and wet. "I felt your feet stomping up there for days. I'm Mirk. I live here. So does the thing you're about to wake." Grunk's grip tightened on the torch. "Then tell me what it is." Mirk floated closer to the light. "Old. Big. It sleeps at the bottom. It doesn't mind me because I take only a sip. But you? You want to crack the whole roof open." Mirk pointed a muddy finger at the shovel. "Do that and it wakes hungry. It'll pull you down and hold you under." Grunk thought of his bare rock, his dead acorns, the creatures with nowhere to go. He would not turn back. But he would not dig blind either. "How do I take water without waking it?" Mirk tilted its head. "You don't take. You ask. Leave it something sweet. Keep it dreaming." Grunk climbed back down the ridge and returned with a shallow bowl. Golden mead filled it, thick and glowing. He had traded three days of labor for it at a farmstead. He set the bowl on a flat stone beside the crack and slid it down on a plank until it rested at the water's edge. The pool stirred. Something vast shifted far below, and a slow current pulled the bowl under. The mead vanished. Then the water went calm again. It did not rise. It did not reach for Grunk. Mirk grinned, teeth small and white in the mud. "It took the offering. It's dreaming now. Dig slow, digger, and keep the sweet coming, or it stops dreaming for good." Grunk knew his enemy at last, and he knew its price. He lifted his shovel and broke the first stone. Water trickled up toward his dead ridge. Now he had to keep a sleeping giant fed, and the mead was already gone.