Dawn came to the Southern Coven in layers — not the sharp, clean sunrise of open territory but the gradual, filtered illumination of a forest so old and so dense that sunlight had to negotiate its way through centuries of canopy, arriving at the forest floor in muted columns of gold-green light that made the entire settlement look like the inside of a cathedral whose stained glass windows were living leaves.
Arvella had not slept.
She stood on the bridge outside the Matron's chamber, barefoot on living wood, her earth-woven gown damp with the morning moisture that collected on every surface in a tree-settlement that breathed with the forest. The moss at her hem had grown overnight — three inches of new growth, reaching down the bridge's railing in exploratory tendrils, responding to the
