By the second week of travel, the trees had thinned to shrubs and bramble. They had taken the circuitous route to get here, mostly sticking to the woods and lesser-traveled areas. The soil turned dry underfoot, and the wind carried a sharp taste of salt and something bitter, like burnt wood. Even the birds had grown quiet, as if the land itself wanted silence.

  The dryads moved carefully across the uneven earth, their boots barely disturbing the dust. Nethira walked near the front, her eyes fixed on the horizon. Ylla kept her shawl wrapped tight around her shoulders, her face drawn and thoughtful. The Seeker trailed slightly behind, his steps slow, his gaze far off as if listening to voices no one else could hear.

  At dawn, they crossed the old border and stepped into the eastern human lands.

  What was once Elzibar came into view beneath a haze. The hills were dotted with blackened posts, the faint stink of char and smoke still clinging to the grass, though the fires had long gone out. Nothing stood taller than a man anymore. Only soot-black timbers leaning like broken teeth, and faint outlines in the soil where walls and roofs had once been.

  Nethira stopped on the ridge and drew in a breath through her nose. She closed her eyes for a moment.

  “It’s hollow,” she said softly. Her voice carried more sadness than surprise. “But the earth still remembers the fire.”

  Ylla followed her gaze. She shivered and pulled her shawl closer. “And pain. It’s soaked into the roots here. The ground is heavy with it.”

  The Seeker didn’t reply. He tilted his head slightly, his eyes distant as if hearing something the others could not. Then he raised a hand and pointed down toward the ruins.

  A flicker.

  A figure moved between the remnants of two burned-out buildings. The man was hunched, limping slightly, a small torch held low in one hand. His other hand dragged along the broken stone as if steadying himself. He muttered under his breath, words too faint to hear. His shoulders sagged with exhaustion, and his clothes hung loose on him, coated in ash.

  The dryads fanned out quietly, keeping their distance but circling so they would not be seen all at once.

  The man turned. He caught sight of their shapes—tall, slender, cloaked in bark-toned robes that blended with the shadows. His eyes went wide. He shrieked and stumbled backward, nearly falling.

  “Stay back!” he cried, raising his torch like a weapon. “If you’ve come for another fight, I’ve still got blood left to give!”

  The Seeker stepped forward slowly, hands open at his sides. He whispered a few words under his breath, words that slipped through the air like falling leaves. His hand traced a slow arc.

  A faint glow rose up in the dim light, small fireflies blinking into being around him. Their golden light gathered into a circle, then drifted into a soft lantern that hovered near his shoulder. The glow gave no heat, only calm.

  “We are not your enemy,” Nethira said gently. She took a step forward, her palms open. “We are dryads.”

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  The man blinked, the firelight flickering across his face. He lowered the torch an inch, confusion etched across his features.

  “Dryads?” he repeated, his voice hoarse. “I thought you were… I don’t know what I thought. I’ve never seen one of you before.”

  “Most haven’t,” Ylla said softly. Her tired smile held no mockery.

  “We came to see what happened here,” Nethira explained. “To see the wound left behind.”

  The man gave a sound that was half a laugh, half a cough. He dropped onto an overturned pail with a groan, stabbing his torch in the ground next to him.

  “You’re late,” he muttered. “Two weeks too late.”

  He looked up at them, his eyes rimmed red, his face hollow with grief and dust. “I heard about it on the road. From a man and his boy. Maruzan and Velthur, I think they said. They were heading to Harbinth. Told me not to come. Said it wasn’t worth it. But I… I had to see for myself.”

  His voice cracked on the last word. He gestured vaguely at the ruins around him.

  “This was home, well, at least before me and my family settled over in the hills a few years back.”

  The dryads were silent.

  Ylla finally asked, her voice steady, “Why are you still here?”

  The man stared at her as if the question itself was strange. “My family was here during the attack, waiting for me. I was on the road. I don’t feel like going back to our home in the hills. I prefer to stay here. Because I have to rebuild. I need that,” he said.

  Nethira stepped closer. Her brow furrowed. “But it’s all been destroyed. There is nothing left here.”

  He gave a rough laugh and waved his hand toward the scorched ground. “Not nothing. Just broken pieces.”

  He lifted his torch and pointed across what might once have been a street. “That was the baker’s shop. She made peach pastries every Saturday morning. Always gave me an extra because she liked my beard.”

  He turned slightly, motioning to a charred timber sticking up like a spear. “That’s where I kissed Olna Timmerlane when we were fifteen. Thought the world had stopped turning that day.”

  His eyes moved to a stone slab, half-buried in ash. “My rug stand sat there for twenty years. Every stitch was mine. Travelers used to stop just to see the patterns. My hands built this place, piece by piece.”

  His voice lowered. “I’m too old to start over somewhere else. Harbinth? Crowded. Loud. Strangers on every corner. I’d rather be here, with the ghosts, than lost among the living.”

  The fireflies pulsed faintly, their light circling around the man like quiet guardians.

  Nethira’s chest tightened. She felt the Dreamscape tugging faintly at her, voices of dreams. They whispered, though not clearly. She thought about what it meant to cling to a burned home, and what the dream-voices might say to him if he could hear them.

  Ylla knelt slightly, her eyes soft. “The pain is deep here. You know that. You feel it every day.”

  “I do,” he admitted. His eyes shone wet. “But it’s my pain. It’s what I have left.”

  The Seeker finally spoke. His voice was quiet, but it carried. “We have seen enough. The wound is clear.” He looked at the man with something like sorrow in his eyes.

  Ylla placed a gentle hand on the man’s shoulder. “May your family find their way back to you, in this world or the next.”

  Nethira lowered her head in a bow. “And may this place grow again, if it is meant to.”

  The man looked at them as if he wanted to say more, but the words caught in his throat.

  Then, like mist fading before the sun, the dryads moved back into the shadows. Their steps were soundless, the glow of the fireflies trailing behind them like fading stars. In a blink, they were gone, swallowed by the ruins and the rising light.

  The man sat alone, torch dim in his hands, surrounded by the silence of a place that used to live.

  But for the first time in many days, he did not feel entirely abandoned. He did not feel like the world had forgotten.

  He felt remembered.