The blight reached Sylvara's grotto at dawn. She knelt at the mouth of her home, where damp stone and layered moss had sheltered her for years, and pressed her palm to a fern gone black. The rot had crossed the roots in a single night. She was the druid of this forest, and the forest was dying faster than she could walk its paths. She knew the cause. Deep in the groves slept an ancient heart-tree. While it dreamed, the blight crept inward. Wake the tree, and the forest would heal. But Sylvara did not know where it slept. The deepest groves were a tangled maze of roots and shadow. She could wander there for days while the rot spread to every stream and nest. She gripped her staff and stepped into the trees. Within an hour she was lost. Every path bent back on itself. Blackened leaves marked trails she had already crossed. The moss cloak on her shoulders felt heavy with the stink of decay. She stopped and pressed her forehead to the bark of a sickly oak. "Show me," she whispered. The oak gave nothing. A sharp chatter broke the silence. A squirrel with blue and green fur darted down a trunk. It stopped an arm's length away, bright eyes fixed on her. Then it bolted deeper into the grove. Sylvara had fed this creature acorns through many winters. It had never led her anywhere. Now it paused, looked back, and chattered again. She followed. The squirrel leaped from root to root, always just ahead. It skirted the blackened ground as if it knew which paths still lived. Twice Sylvara lost it in the gloom. Twice its chatter called her on. Her legs burned. The light dimmed. She almost turned back. Then the trees opened. Before her stood a sequoia taller than any tree she knew. Its bark was broad and timeworn. Faint threads of light drifted around its trunk, pale gold and blue, turning slow in the still air. The squirrel scrambled up a root and vanished into the branches. Sylvara stood frozen. No blight touched this place. The ground here was clean and green. She understood at once. This was the heart-tree. Its slumber had hidden it, and its own fading magic had masked the way. She had walked past this grove a hundred times without seeing it. Sylvara stepped forward and laid both hands on the warm bark. The drifting lights brightened at her touch. She felt a slow pulse deep inside the wood, like a heartbeat half-stopped. The tree was alive. It was close to waking. But close was not awake. The pulse faltered under her palms, weak and uneven. Whatever kept the heart-tree sleeping still held it fast. Finding the tree had been the easy part. Now she had to wake it, and she did not yet know the words.

Sylvara kept her hands on the warm bark until her arms ached. The pulse inside the tree stayed weak. Waking words would not come to her. She knew the old ritual needed one thing above all: water drawn from a spring of pure forest magic. Only clean magic could feed the tree back to life. So she left the clearing to find a spring. She walked the living paths that still held color. Each spring she reached told the same story. Black threads laced the water. The smell of rot rose from the mud. She knelt at one pool and cupped a handful. It ran gray through her fingers. The blight had crept into every source near enough to reach. She dumped the water out and sat back on her heels. Without clean magic, the ritual was dead before she began. Light moved across the water. Sylvara looked up. A fairy hovered above the tainted pool, no taller than her forearm. Her wings threw color over the black water. A faint glow clung to her skin. She watched Sylvara the way a sentry watches a stranger at a gate. "You touched the heart-tree," the fairy said. "Few find it. Fewer are welcome." She drifted closer. "I have guarded that tree since before your grandmother drew breath. Why do you trouble its sleep?" "The forest is dying," Sylvara said. "I came to wake it. But every spring is fouled. I need pure magic and there is none left." The fairy studied her for a long moment. Then her hard look eased. "You speak the truth. The rot is in the water, yes. But not all magic flows." She reached into a fold at her belt and drew out a green stone. It sat dark in her palm, its glow long gone. "This holds the last clean magic of this grove. I kept it against the worst day. That day has come." Sylvara reached, then stopped. "If you give it to me, you have nothing left." "If I keep it, the forest ends." The fairy pressed the stone into Sylvara's hand. It was cold and heavy. "Spill its light at the roots. The tree will drink. But heed me. One stone wakes the tree only partway. You still need the words, and I do not hold them." Sylvara closed her fingers around the gift. The cold of it bit her palm. "Where are the words kept?" "Not with me." The fairy rose, her wings scattering light across the dead pool. "I gave you the fuel. The voice is yours to find." Sylvara stood. She had a source of pure magic now, held in one hand. But the stone sat dark and silent, and she did not know how to make it burn. The spring problem was solved. A harder one had opened in its place.