By morning, Savar hated being watched.
He hated the furs around him. He hated the bandage around his fingers. He hated the dried blood under his nails. He hated the ache behind his eyes most of all, because it was the only wound no one could see and therefore the one everyone seemed to notice.
Lysa cleaned his hands again after sunrise.
Not gently.
Gently would have been worse.
"Hold still."
"I am."
"You are trying to pull away slowly. That is not still. That is cowardice with patience."
Savar scowled, but he stopped moving.
Morna sat near Konnan with the red leaf from the Painted Dogs tree resting in her lap. She had not mocked him much since the night before. Not because she was afraid. That would have been easier to bear. She watched him as if she were listening to a sound others could not hear and deciding what shape it had.
That made Savar restless.
"Say it," he muttered.
Morna looked up. "Say what?"
"Something clever."
"I am thinking."
"That is worse."
"It often is."
There.
A little bite.
Savar felt better despite himself.
Lysa tied the cloth around his fingers and pulled the knot tight.
Savar hissed.
"There," she said. "Still yours."
"I knew my hand was mine."
"Last night you did not know where your eyes were."
The shelter went quiet.
Savar looked down.
Torren stood near the entrance with Lady Forlorn resting sheathed beside him. He had watched without speaking. That was worse than if he had shouted.
Outside, Pale Roots moved carefully through morning. Men spoke low. The forge had not yet begun its first hard rhythm. Even Gerrik, who usually beat the day awake before the sun had fully reached the hollow, seemed to have delayed his hammering.
Everyone knew something had happened.
Few knew what.
That would not last.
Lysa finished binding Savar's hand and turned to Torren.
"You will speak now."
Torren looked at her.
Lysa's face had the cold steadiness of a woman who had already been afraid and now wanted something to cut.
"You knew the words," she said. "High tree. Kneeling clans. White. Blood. You knew them."
Savar lifted his head.
Morna's fingers rested lightly on the red leaf.
Torren came closer to the fire and sat across from his children. He did not sit as chief. He sat as father. That made Lysa watch him more closely.
"I knew them," he said.
Savar swallowed. "Because you saw it?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"Years ago."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the beginning of one."
Lysa did not blink.
Torren looked toward the smoke hole above them, where pale morning light entered in a thin grey column.
"It was at the Painted Dogs camp," he said. "Before Pale Roots became this. Before the forge. Before Konnan. Before these twenty trees had shown me what they were."
Morna listened without moving.
Savar's bandaged fingers tightened in the furs.
"Their Tree Speaker was with me," Torren said. "The heart tree watched us. I touched the roots, and the world vanished."
Konnan made a small sound in Lysa's lap.
Torren continued.
"For a moment there was only darkness. Then I stood in a forest so large it had no edge. Weirwoods everywhere. Red leaves under grey clouds. More trees than any mountain could hold."
Morna looked down at her leaf.
"The forest began to burn," Torren said.
Lysa's eyes sharpened.
"Flames took the trees. Iron swords flashed in the hands of men in armor. The forest fell. Not one tree. Not one grove. Forests. The old eyes cut and burned until the land changed beneath them."
Savar's anger had gone. He was listening with his whole body now.
"Then the fire faded," Torren said. "Stone rose where roots had been. Towers. Castles. Walls. Men behind stone instead of under leaves."
"And then?" Savar asked.
"Snow."
The boy went still.
"Snow fell across the Mountains of the Moon," Torren said. "I saw the ridges full of warriors. Thousands. Painted faces. Axes raised. Dogs. Crows. Burned Men. Moon men. Stone teeth. Clans that had killed each other for goats and pride standing beneath the same cold sky."
Morna whispered, "The high tree."
Torren nodded.
"A single white tree grew from the highest peak. Above them all. Beneath it stood a figure with pale skin and red eyes."
Savar's face had gone pale.
"Blood ran down the trunk like sap," Torren said. "The warriors knelt."
No one spoke.
Even Konnan had gone silent.
"The vision broke," Torren said. "The grove returned. The Tree Speaker asked what I had seen."
"What did you say?" Savar asked.
"The mountains."
The fire cracked.
Torren's eyes moved to the children. "And then I said the trees were watching."
Morna looked toward the upper path, where the twenty trees stood beyond sight.
"They are," she said.
Not frightened.
Certain.
Lysa's gaze did not leave Torren.
"You never told me all of it."
"No."
"Why?"
"Because saying a thing aloud makes men begin to live around it."
"And now?"
"Now Savar has seen enough of it that silence would be a lie."
Savar stared at his father. "Was the figure you?"
Torren did not answer quickly.
Savar saw that.
Lysa saw it too.
"I do not know," Torren said.
"You have pale skin and red eyes."
"So do you."
Savar's mouth closed.
"So does Konnan," Morna said.
Lysa's arm tightened around the baby.
Konnan stared at Torren as if offended by being named in a thing he could not yet bite.
Torren looked at Savar. "A vision is not a crown. It is not a promise. It is not a song already sung. It is a wound in time. You see blood and think you know who cut whom. You do not."
Savar's eyes dropped.
"Mother Maera saw it too," Torren said.
Lysa breathed out slowly through her nose.
"The old one?"
"Yes. Tree Speaker of the Sons of the Tree and the Sons of the Mist. Old age took her before Konnan was born. No blade. No fever. She slept and did not come back."
Savar frowned. "She saw the same?"
"She saw the burning. She saw stone rise. She saw the kneeling. She knew the trees were showing the mountains something large enough to break men who grabbed at it too soon."
"Did she see who it was?" Savar asked.
"If she did, she kept it."
"Why?"
"Because old women know when boys are too hungry for names."
Savar looked away, annoyed because he knew the words were meant for him.
Torren let the annoyance sit.
Then he added, "Mother Maera did not know all of what I was."
Lysa's eyes narrowed. "What does that mean?"
"She knew the vision. She knew the old gods watched. She knew green dreams could bleed into waking. But she did not know about the other door."
Savar looked back. "What other door?"
Torren did not answer him yet.
Lysa stood, shifting Konnan against her hip.
"Listen to me carefully," she said.
Torren looked up.
"If the trees want a king, they can grow one from bark. My son is not yours to spend."
Savar stiffened. "I am not being spent."
"You do not yet know when men count you as coin," Lysa said.
His face flushed.
Torren did not rebuke her.
That angered her more than if he had.
"You look at him differently," she said.
Torren looked at Savar.
The boy sat wrapped in furs, scraped, bandaged, ashamed, hungry for meaning, afraid of his own fear and furious that anyone had seen it.
"Yes," Torren said.
Lysa's face hardened.
Torren continued before she could speak. "Because I must."
"No."
"Yes. If I look at him only as a frightened boy, I leave him frightened. If I look at him only as a sign, I lose him. So I will look at both."
Morna watched him with steady red eyes.
Not scared.
Listening.
Lysa looked as if she wanted to reject the answer and could not find where it lied.
"He is seven," she said.
"I know."
"Say it like it matters."
"He is seven," Torren said. "And the trees have already opened an eye in him."
Konnan's pale hand closed in Lysa's hair.
She did not seem to feel it.
"What will you do?" she asked.
Torren looked at Savar.
"Name the fear."
By midday, Torren took Savar to the twenty trees.
Lysa did not like it.
She made that clear before they reached the upper path.
"He nearly broke under those roots."
"Then he should see them while awake."
"He is seven."
"So was I when the Painted Dogs tree showed me burning forests and kneeling mountains."
"That does not comfort me."
"It was not meant to."
Her eyes flashed.
Torren lowered his voice. "If he fears the grove, he will dream of it. If he dreams of it, he may return without his feet touching the path. Better he walks there beside me."
Lysa looked past him to Savar.
The boy stood with his bandaged hand held stiffly against his side, trying to seem impatient rather than afraid.
Morna stood behind Lysa with Konnan seated heavily against her legs. She looked from Savar to the upper path.
"You heard him last night," Torren said to her.
Morna nodded.
"What do you hear now?"
She considered.
"Savar being angry because he is afraid."
Savar snapped, "I am not."
Morna shrugged. "Then you are angry for no reason. That is worse."
Torren almost smiled.
Lysa did not.
"Bring him back before dusk," she said.
"I will."
"If his eyes go white again—"
"I will call him back."
"And if he does not hear?"
Torren looked toward the trees.
"Then come with your knife."
Lysa did not smile.
But she stepped aside.
The grove looked different beneath the day.
Less like a mouth. More like what it was: twenty pale trunks, red leaves, twisted roots, cold earth, old faces carved into white bark and watching from every side. The place where Savar had thrashed was still marked. Dirt torn. Moss scraped away. A root darkened where his blood had touched it.
Savar saw.
Torren let him.
The boy swallowed.
"I do not want to lie there again."
"Good."
"That is all?"
"That is enough for now."
Torren sat before the central tree and set his knife on the ground between them.
Savar frowned. "Why do that?"
"So you know I did not bring you here to fight."
"What if something comes?"
"Then we learn whether knives matter."
Savar did not like that answer.
He sat anyway.
For a time, they listened.
The grove had its own sounds. Leaves touching leaves. Far water below stone. The soft scrape of claws on branch.
Savar looked up.
Three ravens sat in the tree above them.
Black against white.
"Are they always here?"
"No."
"Are they here because of me?"
"Perhaps."
"Is perhaps the only answer old people know?"
"No."
"What else do they know?"
"When not to answer boys."
Savar scowled.
One raven croaked.
The smallest of the three hopped along a branch and settled again, head tilted.
Torren watched it.
Then he looked at his son.
"If you have greensight," he said, "there may be another door in you."
Savar's annoyance faded. "What door?"
"Skinchanging. Warging, some call it."
The boy's eyes widened before he could hide it.
"Into animals?"
"Sometimes."
"Ravens?"
"Sometimes."
"Wolves?"
"If the wolf accepts you."
"Bears?"
"If you want to lose yourself quickly."
Savar looked back at the ravens.
"Can you?"
Torren leaned against the root behind him.
"Yes."
The boy stared.
"You?"
"Yes."
"Who taught you?"
"The Painted Dogs Tree Speaker first."
"Not Mother Maera?"
"No."
"But you said she saw the same vision."
"She did. That does not mean she knew every door in me. Mother Maera knew trees and dreams. She knew the old gods. She knew what the mountains had been shown. She did not know I had ever touched a bird's fear, or a wolf's hunger, or the edge of another skin."
Savar listened hard.
"The Painted Dogs Tree Speaker knew?" he asked.
"He suspected before I understood it myself. He saw when my eyes changed. He saw when animals watched me too long. He taught me enough not to tear myself open every time I reached."
"Did he teach you well?"
Torren looked up at the ravens.
"He taught me roughly."
Savar considered this.
"Will you teach me roughly?"
"If you need it."
"Will I?"
"Yes."
The boy sighed as if the world insisted on being unfair.
Torren pointed toward the ravens.
"Choose one."
"The big one."
"No."
Savar turned sharply. "Why?"
"Because you chose it for being big."
"What is wrong with big?"
"Nothing, when choosing a goat to steal."
Savar muttered under his breath.
Torren ignored it.
"Choose again."
The middle raven picked at its wing.
The smallest one watched them.
Savar stared at it.
"That one."
"Why?"
"It was already looking at me."
"Better."
The raven croaked as if unimpressed.
Savar sat straighter.
"No," Torren said.
"What?"
"You made yourself tall. Stop."
"I am sitting."
"You are trying to impress a bird."
"I am not."
"The bird disagrees."
Savar glared at the raven.
"Do not chase it," Torren said.
"How do I not chase something I want?"
"By wanting less loudly."
"That makes no sense."
"It will if it works."
"And if it does not?"
"Then you will be angry and we will try again."
That answer, at least, Savar understood.
He looked at the raven.
Torren watched the boy's breathing. Too fast at first. Too sharp. Savar attacked silence like an enemy. He narrowed his eyes. His shoulders rose. His jaw clenched.
The raven ruffled its feathers and looked away.
"Nothing is happening," Savar said.
"You are shouting inside your own skull."
"I am not."
"You are. I can hear it from here."
"No, you cannot."
"The raven can."
The raven croaked.
Savar's face darkened. "It is laughing."
"Yes."
"At me?"
"Likely."
"I hate it."
"Good. Now stop trying to conquer it."
They tried again.
And again.
The sun moved.
The shadows under the twenty trees shifted.
Savar failed with increasing bitterness. Then with tiredness. Then with the quiet that came after bitterness had struck all the stones it could find and had nowhere left to go.
Torren waited for that.
The Painted Dogs Tree Speaker had waited for that in him once.
Mother Maera had not taught him this.
She had known the shape of the mountain's dream, but not the feel of wings from inside the bone. That had been another lesson. Another old voice. Another tree. Another fear.
Savar stared at the small raven.
He no longer sat tall.
He no longer looked like a boy imagining himself mighty before a future song.
He looked like a tired child with sore fingers, aching eyes, and too much pride to ask to stop.
The raven looked back.
The grove grew very still.
Torren felt the change before he saw it.
Savar's breath softened.
His face emptied.
Then his eyes rolled white.
All white.
No red. No black. No pupil.
Milk-white from lid to lid.
Torren's hand moved before thought, then stopped.
Do not grab.
Do not drag him from the roots.
The small raven went still above them.
The world jumped.
Savar was no longer looking up.
He was above.
White branches beneath black claws. Red leaves close enough to peck. Wind moving under feathers. The ground below too sharp, too far, too full of things that had smells and heat and meaning.
His father sat among the roots.
Pale hair lifted slightly by the wind.
One hand half-raised.
Not touching.
Waiting.
Savar saw himself below: a small boy, bandaged fingers in his lap, mouth parted, eyes gone white as blind milk.
For one breath, he saw the grove from the raven's eye.
Then fear struck.
Not only his.
The bird's.
Up.
Wing.
Air.
Away.
Savar fell back into his body with a gasp.
His pupils returned at once, wide and red and wild.
He pitched forward, catching himself on his injured hand, then cried out before he could swallow it.
Torren caught his shoulder.
"Savar."
The boy looked at him.
For one heartbeat, the terror from the night before came back into his face.
Then it broke.
A grin spread across him, bright and helpless.
"Father."
Torren did not speak.
"I did it."
Above them, the raven beat its wings once.
It did not fly away.
Torren looked up.
The bird looked back.
Pride came first.
Fear followed so close behind it that he could not tell which one had drawn blood.
"Yes," Torren said slowly. "You did."
Savar laughed once, breathless.
"I saw you. I saw me. I was small."
"You are small."
"Not like that."
"No," Torren said. "Not like that."
"Can I do it again?"
"No."
The answer struck the joy from his face.
"But I did it."
"Yes."
"So I can—"
"You opened a door enough to look through. That is not the same as knowing what waits beyond it."
Savar looked up at the raven.
It blinked.
"Was it afraid?" Torren asked.
Savar frowned.
"The raven?"
"Yes."
He thought about it.
"Yes."
"Of you?"
"No."
"Of what?"
Savar swallowed.
"Of falling back."
Torren nodded.
"Remember that."
"Why?"
"Because next time the fear may be yours. Or its. Or something wearing both."
The boy's grin had faded now, but not completely. Some of the wonder remained. That was dangerous. That was necessary.
"Will you teach me?" Savar asked.
The question had been waiting since morning.
Perhaps since the night before.
Perhaps since Torren had first stood beneath the Painted Dogs tree and seen forests burn.
"Yes," Torren said.
Savar's face lit again.
"Quietly," Torren added.
"Why?"
"Because men who hear of doors try to open them with axes."
"I will not tell."
"You will want to."
"I will not."
"You will want to."
Savar scowled, which meant he understood.
Torren looked toward the central tree.
"I will teach you what I was taught by the Painted Dogs Tree Speaker. Not Mother Maera. Remember that. Mother Maera knew the dream. She did not know this door. You will learn breathing. Silence. Hunger. You will learn when not to enter. You will learn that animals are not cloaks to wear because you are cold."
Savar listened hard.
"You will learn fear," Torren said.
"I already know fear."
"No. You have met it. That is not knowing."
The boy did not argue.
That was new.
They returned before dusk.
Lysa waited outside the shelter with Morna beside her and Konnan heavy in her arms. One look at Savar's face told her something had happened. One look at Torren's told her it was worse than the boy understood.
"What did you do?" she asked.
Savar opened his mouth.
Torren answered first.
"He touched a raven."
Lysa went very still.
Morna leaned forward a little.
Not afraid.
Interested.
"Touched," Lysa said.
"With his mind," Torren answered.
Savar could not contain himself. "I saw from it."
Lysa's gaze snapped to him.
The pride on his face faltered.
"Only for a breath," he said.
Morna looked toward the twenty trees.
"Did it know?"
Savar frowned. "The raven?"
"Yes."
He hesitated.
"I think so."
"Did it let you?"
That question struck the air differently.
Savar looked to Torren.
Torren did not answer for him.
"I do not know," Savar said.
Morna nodded as if that answer mattered more than yes would have.
Konnan made a low sound in Lysa's arms and reached one pale hand toward Savar. Lysa held him back.
"You took him to the roots and opened another door," she said to Torren.
"I showed him how not to be dragged through one."
"You do not know that."
"No. Not yet."
Her eyes hardened.
"You will not feed my son to trees."
"No," Torren said. "I will teach him how not to be eaten."
"You know how?"
Torren did not answer quickly enough.
Lysa stepped closer.
"Then learn before he pays for your guessing."
"I will."
"If you stop fearing it," she said, "I take him from your lessons."
"You would try."
"I would do more than try."
He believed her.
That was one reason he loved her.
Savar looked between them, the brightness in his face dimming as he began to understand that triumph did not make adults less afraid. Sometimes it made them worse.
Good, Torren thought.
Let him learn that early.
Morna still watched him.
Savar shifted under her gaze. "What?"
"You were gone."
"For a breath."
"You were gone," she repeated.
He looked down at his bandaged hand.
Then Morna added, "But you came back faster this time."
Savar looked at her.
It was not comfort.
Not exactly.
But it was not fear either.
That helped more than he wanted it to.
Konnan stared over Lysa's arm, silent and red-eyed.
Above the hollow, somewhere among the twenty trees, a raven croaked.
Savar looked up.
So did Torren.
The bird was only a black mark against red leaves and white branches.
Savar had wanted a scar men could see.
The gods had given him something worse.
A door.