Raewyn had guarded this grove for two human lifetimes, and now strangers came with axes. She smelled their smoke through the trees. She meant to drive every one of them out. But the only path deep into the grove ran past the dark-barked tree, and she would not go near it. She stood at the edge of the clearing and stared at the trunk. It had grown from a seed pulled from her own hair. She had planted that seed on a grave. A young elf lay under the roots, a child killed on a watch she had traded away because she wanted to sleep. The tree was taller than her now. It had no low branches. She had never let herself look at it long enough to count its shadows. Behind her, wood cracked. An axe bit oak somewhere down the slope. The invaders were cutting toward the heart of the grove. If she waited, they would reach the old ones. She had to pass the tree tonight or lose the forest. Raewyn took one step forward. Her legs locked. She could not force her body past the grave. Then the great sentinel tree at the clearing's center spoke. It was the oldest thing in the grove, its ironwood trunk twisted with age, its bark carved by time into the shape of a sleeping face. She had heard it wake only twice in her life. "You buried guilt and grew a wall," the sentinel said. Its voice moved the ground under her feet. "The child does not blame you. You blame you." "I did nothing," Raewyn said. "I found what killed her. I let it walk." "And it never came for you." The sentinel's carved eyes did not open. "Because the child stayed between. She has guarded your path since the day you planted her." Raewyn looked at the dark tree again. She made herself walk toward it. Her heart slammed. She reached the trunk and pressed her palm to the cold bark. The tree did not strike her. It leaned. Its branches bent away from the deep grove, pointing her forward, clearing the path she had feared for years. She understood then. The child had not been waiting to punish her. The child had been holding the way open, waiting for her to come. Raewyn passed the grave tree and stepped onto the buried path. Her body no longer fought her. She moved fast now, silent between the old trunks, toward the smoke and the sound of axes. Ahead, torchlight flickered through the leaves. She counted the shapes around the fire. Broad shoulders. Braided beards. Iron axes leaned against a felled trunk. More of them than she had guessed, deep in her grove already, cutting. The path was open. The intruders were close. And she was alone against a warband.

Raewyn crouched at the edge of the firelight and counted them again. Ten men, maybe twelve, broad and armored, their axes stacked against a felled oak. One strike from her would draw them all. They would cut her down before she thinned their number. She needed the grove itself to fight beside her. She crept back through the dark to the great sentinel tree. Its ironwood trunk twisted up out of the roots, and the sleeping face carved in its bark seemed to watch her. She pressed both palms to the bark. "They cut toward the old ones," she said. "I cannot stop them alone. Lend me your roots." The ground trembled under her feet. The sentinel's carved eyes stayed shut, but its voice moved the soil. "Then bring them to me. The rest is mine." Raewyn understood. She could not win a battle in the open. She could win an ambush. She circled wide and slipped into the trees behind the invaders' camp. She found a fallen branch and struck a trunk, hard, twice. Wood cracked in the dark. The men jumped up and grabbed their axes. A big one pointed toward the sound. Raewyn struck another trunk farther off, then another, drawing their line away from the fire. They followed, cursing, boots crushing leaves. She led them straight beneath the sentinel's vast canopy. When the last man passed under the branches, the tree woke fully. Roots tore up from the ground and coiled around ankles. The men shouted and swung their axes at the wood. The sentinel's limbs bent low and swept them off their feet. Branches wrapped two of them and lifted them screaming into the dark leaves. Raewyn moved among the ones still down. She was quick and silent between the roots. She took them one at a time, cutting throats before they could rise. The tree held them; she finished them. This was the ambush she had planned, and it worked. When it ended, the ground was still. Roots dragged the bodies down into the loam. Raewyn stood in the quiet, breathing hard, her blades wet. The warband deep in her grove was dead. Then a horn sounded, far off through the trees. Deep and low, answered by a second. Raewyn turned toward it. This band had not come alone. They were the forward camp of a larger host, and now that host knew their scouts had gone silent. The sentinel's voice came once more, quieter. "You cleared one nest. The swarm still comes." Raewyn wiped her blades on the moss. She had proven the grove would fight with her. But the horns kept sounding, closer now, and there were far more axes still moving through her forest than one tree could swallow.

The horns kept sounding, closer now. Raewyn stood beneath the sentinel and counted the calls. Three horns, maybe four. The host was too wide for one killing ground. She could not lead a hundred men under one canopy. They would scatter through the whole grove and cut it apart. She needed more than one tree that would fight. She went to find the only other who might come. Thorn Hollowbark was her lover, and he had hunted these woods longer than he cared to count. He guarded his own grove far to the north. He had not come near hers in a long time. She found him crouched over a fresh scar in the earth, where something had torn a young ash up by the roots. "Axes are in my grove," she said. "A host. Too many for one tree." Thorn did not look up. He pressed his palm flat against the broken root. "Something's pulling my trees up too." He was quiet a moment. "Same night. Same horns." "Then we have the same enemy." Raewyn crouched beside him. "My sentinel will fight. But it can only kill what walks under it. I cannot funnel a whole host into one canopy alone." He stood. He was small and gnarled, twigs bristling from his head, but his black eyes held steady on her. "You want a second mouth." "I want you to wake yours. Two groves. Two killing grounds." Thorn said nothing for a long breath. She knew what she asked. He had killed a thing once and buried it under his widest grove, and the grove had died from the burying. He had not gone back since. Now she asked him to wake trees that might carry the same grief hers had carried. "The old grove is dead," he said. "But the young ones aren't." He closed his hand into a fist. "I'll wake what I can." They split the work before dawn. Raewyn returned to her sentinel and pressed both palms to its bark. "He comes with his own," she told it. "We drive them between us." The carved face stayed shut, but the ground hummed under her feet. When the host poured into the grove, the two elves worked as one. Raewyn struck trunks on the eastern edge and drove the first column under her sentinel's limbs. Roots seized them; branches swept them down. Thorn cracked wood to the west and turned the second column into his own young trees. His ash trees bent low and took them. The host broke in half. Neither wing could reach the other. By the time the loam swallowed the last of them, the grove was quiet again. Raewyn found Thorn among his standing ash. His hands were dark to the wrist. He met her eyes and did not smile. "More coming," he said. "I heard a fifth horn."