The forest knew they were coming.
It started subtly — a shift in the canopy that Arvella felt before she saw, the ancient trees adjusting their branches the way a sleeping animal adjusts its ears at the approach of something unfamiliar. The ferns along the ley line path straightened. The moss on the cedar trunks thickened, growing visibly, creeping outward in real time as if the forest were putting on armor. Birds that had been singing fell silent — not with the sharp, alarmed silence of prey sensing a predator, but with the focused, attentive silence of witnesses gathering to watch something they had been waiting for.
"The outer wards," Seraphina said quietly. She had slowed — not by choice but by necessity, the ley line path narrowing, the magical current beneath their feet becoming de
