The ridges north of Harbinth were thick with cedar and moss, the kind of place where the air stayed cool even when the sun pressed down hard. To most, it would feel quiet. Safe. But the dryads knew better. They could read the forest the way a scribe read a book, and this story was one they had seen before.

  Branches had been snapped too neatly, not by wind but by claws or blades. Stones were shifted from their natural places. The air carried the faint tang of scales. The signs were scattered, but clear.

  Kobolds.

  The Seeker crouched beside a stream, dipping his fingers into the water. It was cold, running clear down from the high ridges, but even here the ripples felt disturbed. His jaw tightened.

  “They’ve been here,” he murmured.

  Ylla, who knelt nearby, leaned closer. “How many?”

  “Hard to say,” the Seeker replied. He studied the bank, where a thin claw-mark scored the mud. “At least one. Maybe more. They don’t move alone for long.”

  Neither answer was comforting. If the kobolds were already this close to Harbinth, then the city’s people had little time. Worse, if the dryads had been shadowed since leaving the thickets, then they might have led danger straight to the gates.

  For now, they did the only thing they could, hide.

  The dryads melted into the cedar groves and ivy-choked bluffs, blending with bark and shadow until even the birds ignored their presence. They watched for days, keeping their distance, moving at dawn and dusk, never crossing into the city itself.

  Harbinth was louder than any of them expected. Smiths hammered in the forges, fishermen dragged nets through the docks, children darted between wagons with shrieks of laughter. Priests shouted prayers over fishmongers’ calls, and merchants bargained as if their lives depended on every coin. The city pulsed with life, oblivious to the storm building at its doorstep.

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  Ylla pressed her hand to the trunk of an old oak one evening, her voice barely a whisper. “Any kin here? Any roots still listening?”

  The tree answered only with the rustle of leaves. If any dryads had once lived here, they had long since returned to the soil. Ylla’s shoulders sagged, but the Seeker laid a steady hand on her arm.

  “Then we’ll listen for them,” the Seeker said.

  They prepared in silence. Dryads were not born for war, but war never asked permission. Their staffs were hardened with shale, their cloaks dyed with ivy and ash for camouflage. The Seeker lined his belt with bitterroot and sun-spores, herbal powders meant to paralyze or blind, not kill. That was enough. Or it would have to be.

  On the fifth morning, when the mist still clung low to the ridges, they saw them.

  A group of dwarves moved toward Harbinth’s gate.

  At first, Ylla thought them traders, packs on their backs, cloaks simple and worn. But their stride was too measured, their eyes too sharp. These were no merchants come to haggle over ore. Their weapons were plain, but carried like tools long familiar.

  “What do you think?” Ylla asked softly from her place in the grass.

  The Seeker narrowed his eyes. “They aren’t here for coin.”

  The weight of his words sank in. If the dwarves had come for the same reason the dryads had, then Harbinth was not just a port. It was a battleground waiting to happen.

  The dryads waited, hearts steady, watching as the dwarves disappeared into the gate’s shadow.

  They waited for a while, looking for clues. And then the horns sounded.

  They were long and low, rising from the city walls like the voice of the sea itself. One call from the north wall, then another from the inlet gate, then another from the spire towers. Each horn layered over the last until the ridges themselves seemed to tremble.

  Voices followed, watchmen shouting, boots striking stone, shutters slamming closed. The easy rhythm of the city shattered into noise and fear.

  Ylla flinched at the sound. “Already?”

  The Seeker didn’t answer. He was already moving, slipping back into the brush with the smoothness of water sliding over stone. The others followed, silent but quick.

  Their patient days of watching were over. The storm had arrived, and with it, choices that could no longer be delayed.

  The forest closed around them, and the horns still echoed, carrying through fog and root and bone. The Seeker did not look back. He didn’t need to.

  He already knew.

  The moment of fire had begun.