They never announced their coming. No horns, no banners, no parley. Yet when dawn began to lift its pale light over the hills north of Harbinth, the dryads were there.

  A small band stood at the edge of the forest, half-shrouded in mist. They were quiet figures, cloaked in bark-colored cloth and ivy-threaded roots, their skin marked by faint lines that shimmered green when they breathed. No one would have known they had come unless they looked closely, unless they felt it. The air itself seemed to change where they stood, as though the forest was paying attention.

  They didn’t march. They didn’t take up weapons in rows like the humans or dwarves. Their war was different.

  Nethira knelt at the forest’s edge, her palms pressed into the soft ground. She had been there for hours, unmoving. Her hair fell forward, bright auburn, as her breath came slow and steady. Beneath her hands, the roots trembled faintly, answering her silent call. She whispered a prayer to the old woods, not for victory, but for balance.

  “Wake gently,” she murmured. “But wake.”

  The earth seemed to sigh in reply.

  All around her, the others prepared in their own ways. Some stood with their eyes closed, faces tilted toward the canopy. Others sang low songs that had no words, only tone and feeling, songs that reached the wind and turned it restless. Branches shivered, though no breeze passed through. The ground pulsed faintly, almost alive.

  When Nethira opened her eyes, she saw that the sky had grown pale with the first color of morning. The birds were silent. That, more than anything, told her what was coming.

  “They’ve stopped singing,” she said quietly.

  A dryad beside her, a broad-shouldered one named Arel, looked toward the horizon. His eyes were deep amber, reflecting the dim light. “They sense them,” he said. “The anger and the blood.”

  Nethira nodded. “Then it begins.”

  Arel frowned slightly. “Will we fight, or watch?”

  “Both,” she answered. “The trees will decide when.”

  The Seeker stood a short distance away, apart from the others. He leaned against the trunk of an old oak, his green cloak barely moving in the still air. His gaze was fixed on the faint shapes rising far beyond the plain, smoke, maybe, or dust from marching feet. His mind was restless.

  He felt the world shifting, like water before a flood. He had seen countless battles in his long life, though few as grave as this. The air carried the taste of something foul, old sorcery, twisted and remade.

  Nethira approached him quietly. “You’ve been silent all morning.”

  “I’ve been listening,” he said. “The forest speaks, but not clearly.”

  “It never does before bloodshed,” she said. “It hides its sorrow.”

  He turned to her. “You still believe sorrow can be avoided?”

  “I believe in what must be done,” she replied. Her voice was calm, but her eyes held worry. “And I believe in the boy.”

  At that, the Seeker’s expression softened, though only slightly. “Velthur,” he said. “Yes. I felt the artifact through him again last night. It grows louder.”

  “Louder?”

  He nodded. “As if it’s waking.”

  Nethira frowned. “Can a relic wake?”

  “Everything that dreams can wake,” he said.

  They stood together in silence, listening to the forest breathe.

  Nearby, the younger dryads finished their preparations. They had no armor, only light robes and strands of living vine coiled around their arms. Each carried a small charm of root or feather, bound in prayer. Their task was not to meet the enemy blade for blade. It was to guide the land itself, to slow, confuse, and weaken.

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  Roots beneath the soil were restless now, waiting for the Ylla’s or Nethira’s command. She could feel their tension building like a pulse underfoot. The kobolds would march through here before noon. When they did, they would find the ground shifting against them.

  “Do you trust them?” The Seeker’s voice broke the quiet.

  “The humans?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  Nethira hesitated. “I trust some of them. At least the ones we’ve spent time studying. The boy. The commander. The watchwoman with the scar.”

  “Ennett,” he said.

  “Yes. Her heart burns bright. Too bright, maybe.”

  “Fire burns out quickly when it’s left alone.”

  She gave him a look. “You’re one to talk of fire.”

  He said nothing. The faintest flicker of orange light rippled across his fingertips before fading. She saw it and sighed. “You’re still considering it, aren’t you?”

  “Only if I must,” he said. “Fire can cleanse as well as destroy.”

  “It destroys first,” she said sharply. “Always first.”

  The Seeker’s gaze lowered. “You think me reckless.”

  “I think you carry too much regret,” she said.

  That silenced him. For a while, the only sound was the rustle of leaves overhead.

  When Nethira spoke again, her tone was softer. “What do you think of it? The tooth.”

  He rocked his head back. “I felt it even before I saw it. It hums with drake-song.”

  “Is it dangerous?”

  He took a slow breath. “All power is dangerous. But this…this feels different. Like something reaching through the boy. Something older than us.”

  Nethira shivered. “Then he’s in danger.”

  “He’s part of the danger,” the Seeker said. “But perhaps also its answer.”

  They both turned back toward the city walls in the distance. The first beams of sunlight broke through the clouds, catching on the towers. It looked peaceful from here, quiet and whole. But they knew better. Beneath that calm, soldiers stood ready, hearts pounding just like their own.

  Nethira lowered herself to the ground again, pressing her hands into the soil. She whispered softly, calling to the roots and vines that slept deep below. They stirred, stretching toward the sound of her voice.

  “Slow them,” she whispered. “Trip them. Divide them. Let no flame take hold. We’ll call on the whole of the elements and the forest. The beasts and all.”

  The earth answered in silence, but she felt its promise.

  The Seeker closed his eyes. In his mind, he reached farther, beyond the forest, over the plains where the kobolds marched. He could sense them now: a vast, moving tide of bodies. The rhythm of their march thudded faintly through the ground.

  “They’re close,” he said.

  “How close?”

  “Too close.”

  The forest fell still. Even the insects went silent. The air thickened, pressing heavy around them.

  Then, at last, it came, the faint rumble of thousands of feet striking the earth in rhythm. The sound grew slowly, spreading like thunder crawling over the hills.

  The younger dryads froze where they stood. None spoke. None needed to. They all felt it.

  Nethira lifted her head, her face calm but pale. “They’ve come,” she said quietly.

  The Seeker nodded. His jaw tightened. “Then the forest must stand ready.”

  He reached out his hand and touched the nearest tree. The bark shivered under his palm, its branches swaying slightly though no breeze moved. The air grew colder. Shadows thickened.

  In the distance, the faint cry of a hawk echoed, a warning.

  “Hold your ground,” Nethira told her people. “Do not strike unless they cross the tree line. Let the wind and the roots do the work first.”

  Arel raised his staff. “And if they bring fire?”

  Nethira’s voice did not waver. “Then we trust the Seeker.”

  She looked at him, and for a heartbeat, he almost believed in himself again.

  The Seeker turned back to the forest. “I will not let it burn,” he said. “Not unless there’s no other choice.”

  As the rumble grew louder, the dryads spread out along the edge of the woods, each taking position beside a tree older than any city wall. They stood like statues, their bodies half-blended with the bark, eyes glowing faintly with green light.

  The Seeker and Nethira stayed at the front.

  Beyond the field, the mist began to move, not by wind, but by the shifting of countless bodies within it. The kobold army had reached the outskirts of Harbinth. Their banners rose above the fog, painted in ochre and black. Spears glinted like a moving field of stars.

  For one quiet moment, before the chaos began, the world seemed to hold its breath.

  Nethira closed her eyes. The ground beneath her hands pulsed once, deep and steady.

  “May the forest remember,” she whispered.

  The Seeker’s voice joined hers, low and certain. “May the roots endure.”

  The first horn of battle echoed across the plain.

  And the forest, ancient, patient, alive, opened its eyes.