The morning air above the great elderroot basin was unnaturally still, held in a brittle, suffocating silence that made the needles on the pines stand stiff like iron wire.
Eirwen stood on the highest stone terrace of the central grove, her fingers resting lightly on the nock of a broadhead arrow while her twelve Shards orbited her arms in a slow, luminous silver circle.
The ancient basin had been shaped over three centuries by Alder arborists, who had woven the subterranean root beds into a living vascular system designed to nourish the valley crops and buffer mountain tremors.
Beneath her deer-leather boots, the deep taproots were beginning to vibrate with a discordant, heavy thrum that rose from the bedrock conduits like distant earthquake rumbles.
Across the northern valley, three massive Choral pylons forged from dark basalt and enchanted copper had ignited atop the distant granite ridges, casting greasy violet shadows over the pines.
