Levanter knelt beside a black streak of moss and pressed two fingers into the soil. It was cold where it should have been warm. She had come to these woods to gather four Elder Embers and become their hidden protector. One already pulsed against her ribs. But something else was here now, eating the green from the inside out. She followed the dark veins uphill to a sagging cottage swallowed by rot. Its thatch had blackened. Ivy hung in wet ropes from the beams. The ground around it sank like old bread. This was the heart of the sickness, and no animal tracks crossed within thirty paces. Levanter climbed her watch post, a tall vine-wrapped tower she had claimed weeks ago. From the top she could see the rot spreading in slow rings. No one else stood at any window. No bird called from any branch. She was the only one watching. A shadow passed across the canopy. A great elk with green and brown feathered wings landed on the platform beside her. It folded its wings and lowered its antlers toward the rotting cottage below. The Ember at her chest grew warm. The elk had come because she had been chosen, and because the woods could no longer hide what was happening. She set her hand on the elk's feathered shoulder. "We go to the second one," she said. The trail was no longer cold. The rot itself was the map now, and following it would lead her straight into whatever was making it.