Thornwick Mossweaver stood at the foot of the great living tree and read the trial list twice. His name was not on it. The trial of communion was called only once a generation, and the winner would be named Archdruid. He had walked out of the old growth for this. He had left the silent trees behind, one by one going quiet in a way he still could not explain, because the title would give him the standing to save what was left. But no elder mage had signed beside his name, and without a sponsor the reader at the gate would skip him when the roll was called at dusk. He climbed the woven stair inside the tree, past balconies grown from root and branch. He was looking for the old archdruid who kept a grove three days south, the one everyone said still answered his own door. Thornwick had never met him. He only knew the man had lost a grove already and buried its last tree with his own hands. He found the archdruid on a high landing, sleeves pushed back, scraping something dark off the inside of a bark bowl. Moss clung to his robes in patches. He did not look up. "I need a sponsor," Thornwick said. "By dusk." "So does half the stair behind you." "The old growth at the north edge is going silent. Tree by tree. I've walked it three days." The archdruid kept scraping. "Silent how." "They stopped listening back." The scraping stopped. The old elf looked at Thornwick's staff, then at the antler on his brow. "Who gave you that." "The forest." "Prove it." Thornwick set the butt of his staff against the landing. He did not speak to it. He waited. After a long moment, a thread of green pushed out from the seam where wood met floor and curled once around the archdruid's sandal. The archdruid looked down at his foot. He did not move it. "Rot in my grove three seasons now," he said. "Same shape as your silence, maybe. Maybe not." He set the bowl aside. "I'll sign. You'll walk my grove with me after the trial. Win or lose." "Agreed." They went down together. At the roll table, the archdruid pressed his mark beside Thornwick's name without ceremony and turned away before the ink dried. A voice stopped them both. "Thalindor. You're sponsoring this one?" The speaker stood a step above the table in blue and gold, a circlet on his brow, violet eyes fixed on Thornwick's moss-stitched robes. A prince, and by the stillness around him, one whose interest was not casual. "I am," the archdruid said. "Then I'll be watching him," the prince said. He smiled at Thornwick, small and exact. "Closely." Thornwick's name would be called at dusk. He had a sponsor. He also had the attention of someone who had not been watching him a minute ago.

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."