The Commander of the White Wood Champions leapt from Un’tartha ring to Un’tartha ring. Each bound covering huge distances and bypassing scores of smaller trees. Flying would have been slightly faster, but Nero preferred this for the instant of connection between each jump.

The Featherlight weave modified the Flight weave by tying in strands of essential earth and water. Where Flight completely slipped his body from Kuora’s pull, Featherlight simply made him slick to its attractive force.

After each jump, he made small, midair changes to those threads, varying his weight to adjust how far he traveled. Seemingly simple, it actually required tremendous expertise.

Given Featherlight’s utility in scouting and battle, his entire cadre of Champions wielded the spell with great skill, but none were as adept as Nero.

Every ancient Pado’tan tree spirit in the White Wood grew an Un’tartha perch at their highest point. These provided Champions sentry posts or, as Nero was using them, a treetop highway. The Un’tartha were part of the Di’shan pact.

Bound together by the Di’shan, Champions entwined their soul essence with the collective energy of the White Wood. The bond granted power and abiding emotional stability, making every one of his cadre’ both a devastating presence in a fight, and an unflappable field general.

However, with the gift of emotional clarity came a dependency upon the Forest for their sense of purpose. Deterioration in the spirit was slow when a Champion left its boundary–but inevitable.

The White Wood’s highest protectors rarely spent time outside of its embrace.

Unlike his corps, Nero’s thousands of years included other lives, and he had other bonds–primal bonds–that could sustain him far longer than most. Given the information he had received from the Wood, Nero had a sharp feeling that those bonds would soon be tested.

He’d been searching for Carson, his newest charge and wayward runaway, when the Wood alerted him to a power surge from the ancient city of his ancestors.

Qar’Dakar had been silent for thousands of years, sealed against intrusion and decay by his hand, that of the city Laird, and those other of the Dakaril Varden with sufficient skill in rune work.

Growing up in the streets of Qar’Dakar, chasing ally kits, terrorizing fruit vendors with his friends, and exploring the White Wood, Nero knew it better than anyone.

Those memories were ancient, but if he tried, Nero could still smell the damp stone of its pre-dawn streets, feel his toes and fingers grip the grey-stone mortar joints of his uncle’s runnelry, and hear the Laird’s booming voice greet the sun with him.

He had many other memories; predominantly though, the rest were less innocent.

Qar’Dakar had pushed on for nearly two decades after the Void War, seeking a way to reconnect with Vallabloh Undstengard. The Breal Bloudran dwarves of Vallabloh, being like a second family to many of the Dakaril Elves, had united in the effort.

Ultimately though, the seat of the Dakaril region became essence starved without its link to Vallabloh’s unbound wellspring. Being in a deprived condition, the city had become vulnerable, and so they’d chosen to leave, hoping one day to return.

Even then, the majority of Dakaril elves had already dwelt scattered throughout the White Wood in traditional lineel communities.

With the loss of Qar’Dakar, and the lineels thus made vulnerable, the Laird had pulled them all together, concentrating their considerable power to grow Dakarlineel. It had been their home ever since.

Although Vallabloh had not fallen, Breal Bloudran had paid a different kind of price, and to this day, Nero did not envy them.

Now Qar’Dakar was reawakening, and his Gwarn’din was connected to it. Expected though it was for the harbingers' arrival to trigger such events, Nero had not imagined they would have so little time together before the wheels of prophecy began to turn.

With the breaking of Qar’Dakar’s warding seal, there could be no doubt. It was a clear sign the inevitable had begun.

Few still remembered the prophecy, and of those that did, many considered it nothing more than bardic frivolity. A tale told to reminisce on long-dead history. So, few stood ready. That had to change. But first, Nero must see to his Gwarn’din.

Wind whistling in his ears, Nero closed on a soaring Pado’tan with cool green leaves that dwarfed its surrounding brethren. Its domed shape protruded from the continuous forest ceiling like a bush growing amid a fresh-cut field of wheat.

All Pado’tan trees, scattered throughout the White Wood, stood as men among boys, but Glanathiel was a giant among men.

Nero landed in full view of Glanathiel on the next closest Pado’tan. Traveling on the ground, unaided by essential weaves, the distance would be a quarter-hour trek. Via the Un’tartha, it was a single bound further.

He acknowledged the spirit beneath him, Tinnealle, a gentle feminine being, and received a knowing smile in response. Tinnealle knew well the connection he and Glanathiel shared.

His soul warmed, a smile creased about his eyes, and Nero cut all but the thinnest strands of water and earth from Featherlight. Kuora’s pull on him slipped away.

Inertial mass reduced to that of a small rock, Nero launched from Tinnealle toward the towering tree. He hummed with desire to steal a short respite with his oldest companion before chasing down his Gwarn’din.

Nero swept upward, leaving the comparatively small Tinnealle receding behind. He boosted himself even higher with an infusion of essential air. His arc crested over Glanathiel. Leveling out, he took in the vibrant foliage gently dancing in his wake.

Then he was descending. Touching down, he bent and wrapped fingers about the wrist-thick living circlet.

The supple leather of his boots allowed for a near-perfect connection, but Glanathiel was his Dan’di’shan. Connection with even the soft hide between them was anathema to him.

In Glanathiel’s presence, Nero felt at home in a way that even walking in the heart of Dakarlineel did not provide. Hello, my friend.

Ahhhh… Glanathiel’s primal satisfaction rumbled through Nero. Tis’ wonderous to feel your presence once more, Shin’dan.

And yours, Dan’di’shan. Nero sent. Tension melted away from his eyes, forehead, neck, and shoulders as the weight of concern dissolved. Nero basked in the oneness of Glanathiel’s welcoming embrace. Here he was truly home.

Some time passed, Nero felt it was only minutes, but he knew from experience that could be wrong. Here time was warped by the severity of his stress or pain. Once, when his soul had darkened near to seeking death, many months had passed outside Glanathiel’s refuge while he’d drifted as if in one continuous day.

The song of prophecy echoes in the breeze, loosening the very ROCK beneath us all, Glanathiel’s voice rolled. It sings your name Shin’dan.

Yes, Dan’di’shan. The harbingers have come, and my role has begun. Soon, I must leave and do not know when the path will return me to you. I have come to gain what strength I can, responded Nero, resolute.

Umm… exhaled Glanathiel’s pensive mind as if the ancient spirit had breath. So it is. Worry not, my companion, for I will not give you to fate’s fickle hands without girding. No. I am Glanathiel. I am deep knowing. What is dearest my soul shall not be sent alone into the unknowable.

Come. Come Shin’dan, our Kom’gireth has long set empty and our Vir’ime needs tending. Come and take refuge for this sun and one moon. When next the radiance breaks upon me, we shall have created once more that which long sustained the ancient blood in times forgotten.

With wordless gratitude, Nero accepted Glanathiel’s wisdom. Even his deep connection to purpose was not peerless. If his time outside the Wood stretched long, he knew all too well that even his spirit could be thrown into despair.

It was not a condition he wished to revisit.

Weaving density back into Featherlight, he stepped from his perch.

He dropped from limb to limb, constantly changing his exposure to Kuora’s pull, falling quickly but only touching each branch with the weight of a leaf to redirect his next plunge.

The fall was effortless, in part for Nero’s skill, but also for his Dan’di’shan’s influence; all tasks were greatly eased so close to his partner.

Soon Nero alighted on a thick, black-and-tan mottled bough he knew very well. It alone was larger around than any of the Wood’s lesser trees.

Below it, the girth of Glanathiel’s massive trunk was several times Nero’s height, but here, it bulged to half again as wide. As if an enormous boulder had become lodged inside the Pado’tan, half-swallowed.

Above the limb, there was an opening a bit wider than Nero’s shoulders at knee height. At arm-length, to the right, hung a tight bunch of ripe, blue fruit, heavy and fat from a slender limb of creamy tan.

Nero broke the stem, pulled his satchel around, nestled the Linny fruits within, and stepped through the opening into their Kom’gireth.

Wood grew over the opening behind him as deep green leaves unfurled from a thin vine that ran across the ceiling. The leaves began to luminesce. Nero could see without them, but the light was soothing, and its brilliance reflected the sun’s, allowing him to track time.

The room was warm, dry, and twice Nero’s height in diameter. On the far side, a sleeping nook was lined with feathery-soft split wood. A single sunken shelf, no deeper than a handspan, yawned in the wood beside the nook.

In the chamber’s heart, the circles and glyphs of a fourth-tier elemental power focus rose from Glanathiel’s grain, encircling his core. The focus was theirs, a product and symbol of their extraordinary bond.

Seated there, while holding a coherent and aligned intent between them, he and his Dan’di’shan could raise a small mountain a thousand miles away. It was not a responsibility lightly bestowed, and very few foci of greater power existed.

To his left, a low table extended from the wall. As Nero’s gaze lingered on it, lines, forming a square, recessed into its surface, then rolled away like an unweighted scroll, revealing a hidden cavity and bound volume within. Nero grasped and lifted the book, holding it in one palm and resting the other atop its supple cover.

Our Vir’ime, he sent reverently.

Indeed Shin’dan. Many are the fresh pages the compulsion has required I add in your absence. The ache grows bothersome–fate pokes at my underside. Glanatheil’s voice in his mind fell silent, as if the Pado’tan pondered something, then returned in its customary rumble. Your actions lay heavy upon the unfolding, Shin’dan. Let us color them now, mayhap we may gain wisdom, and fate may rest its incessant prodding.

Of course, Dan’di’shan. Much has occurred in little time. Let us attend to it, sent Nero. He paused, then added, I hate to think you might suffer a moment longer than needed.

Bah! Fate is as a small vine, blindly poking its bits about me. I suffer not. Hmmm… Glanatheil trailed off ominously. Still, the vine unattended will grow as a parasite, undisciplined, uncaring for the life it chokes out.

Nero’s body tingled. Then we shall be expert in guiding its course. We will form of fate a magnificent trellis covering for the path.

Perhaps... Glanatheil was less confident. We shall do as we do, Shin’dan. Come, enough words.

Seating himself in the center of the focus, Nero unslung his bag, placed their Vir’ime in his lap, and allowed it to fall open. The pages settled and displayed a scene from his past.

The perspective was high behind Nero’s enraged figure as he stood over a thick female form, screaming fury and defiance into a tide of enemies.

The entire image was done in blue lines shaded in red wherever activated essential energy was being used. Nero’s full power was displayed as he defended her. Trailing from both his hands, thin arcs drawn in dark blue and wreathed in crimson power cut through the sea of void infected.

It was an instant of mindless devastation frozen in time, and Nero could feel that man slumbering deep within.

In the distance, beyond the horde of corrupted, a small figure stood calmly atop a hillock. The profile was nearly indistinguishable, but the cherry color about him blazed like a sunset.

Nero fixated on the image–it was a dark memory. Then blinked himself free and turned to the first blank page.

He pulled the bunch of Linny fruit from his bag, broke one free, and set the rest beside his knee. Nero then fell into himself and eased open each of his resonant energy gates one by one. When all five were flung wide, the loose essence drawn into the Kom’gireth was thick as honey.

His intention gathered and circulated it all, drawing them in at his base and up through his center, where he bound a thread of soul to each, before pressing them out at his throat.

The energies appeared as bands of grey mist that looped away from Nero, forming five rings that returned just above his waist.

Earth at his spine, air at his left shoulder blade, and water at his left collarbone formed the trio Nero had grown comfortable using nearly every day for more than two millennia.

Still, the two on his right outshone all but his earthen resonance in density. At his right shoulder blade was destruction, and in the position of power at his right collarbone, a silvery band circulated, thick and distinct from the traditional four. He spoke to this band. Our time comes soon.

It responded with crystal peals that rang in his mind. There were no words, as his message had contained none, only the ten thousand ringing tones. We stand ready, brother, the essence replied, and Nero knew it was true.

After completing their loops and passing his center a second time, all but the silvery band flowed up and out through the crown of his head where Glanatheil took control, pulling them up into his trunk. The elder Pado’tan wove in a thread of its soul, then sent them to the tip of his tap root, thousands of feet down.

Deep underground, Nero’s soul-touched essence bands dipped into Kuora’s unbound essential energy well. A near-endless reserve, the unbound well spanned the entirety of Kuora with connections to everything.

It was the most massive known pool of power on the planet, far too great and volatile for any being to harness. But Glanatheil’s connection to the unbound was strong, and his request was welcomed by its collective mind.

For a brief moment, its scattered attention focused. Nero’s essence bands fizzed, and his skin tingled in response as the vast network assimilated all information with an energetic tie to Nero. His essence flows were infused with details of all events involving his Gwarn’din.

As the bands returned from the deep, his Dan’di’shan activated focus glyphs that began glowing dimly. Neither his nor Glanatheil’s mind could read the data directly; the complexity would drive them mad.

And, neither could the focus circle. It could only isolate the imbued information. To see with omniscient eyes, even one page at a time, Nero and Glanatheil used the Yal’irime.

Being a weave that held unbound essence, it required physical components to complete. Such was the nature of unbound energy–it remained chaotic until bound with the physical.

So, the Yal’irime was a binding ritual. One known to few and accessible by even fewer. It offered an outside view into critical moments of Nero’s life and the lives of those to whom he was bound. Nothing could hide from the Yal’irime as no essence could hide from the eye of the unbound.

Even an enemy met in battle, whether in victory or defeat, was connected to Nero for a window of time. A window that stretched out into the time both before and after their fight. The stronger the bond to another, the larger the window he could see.

Returned, the four cords of energy struck the ring underside with physical force. Its concentric containment circles and the activated glyphs pulsed bright yellow light as the focus ring began to weave the Yal’irime.

Completing in seconds, a thick cable of power rose from the focus center, enveloping the Vir’ime in a corona that lifted it from his lap.

Nero bit into the Linny fruit, and rich juice filled his mouth. As he chewed, many of the tiny, dark seeds peppering its interior were crushed between his teeth, releasing bitter shocks along the side of his tongue.

Juice leaked from his mouth corners, running down to his chin and dripping toward the sacred tome. The liquid never hit the paper. A hand width before touching, it was swept into a swirl that hovered above the Vir’ime.

When the fruit was a smooth slurry, thoroughly mixed with his itical essence, Nero bent forward and allowed the pulped mix to spill out. The swirl gathered it all and grew dense. Spinning slowly, the purple mush separated into curving bands of red and blue, creating a two-tone vortex.

Two thin tendrils, one blue and one red, extended from the swirl, siphoning off the color as they reached toward the page. Twisting and twining about each other, they danced, and where they passed, lines were drawn. Slowly, a new image began to appear.

Settling in, Nero took another bite of Linny fruit and repeated the process. When the bands of color thinned, becoming pale, Nero bent forward to replenish them, catching a glimpse of the emerging image as he did.

His mouth snapped shut.

The final bit of color was drawn from the bands, and the Yal’irime vortex turned transparent again. Nero’s gaze narrowed. What are those? Where is that?

Continue Shin’dan, the Yal’irime mustn’t set so. We shall view all when the unbound visions are complete. Glanathiel replied, having heard his concern.

Yes, Dan’di’shan. You are, of course, correct. Nero sent, allowing the mouthful of Linny pulp to drop, replenishing the vortex. Spiraling blue and red arms reappeared, and the tendrils continued their work.

Long minutes and most of a Linny fruit later, the first image finished. The Yal’irime vortex floated to the opposing sheet.

Nero stared in confusion. Do you know what those are, Dan’di’shan?

Humm… Glanathiel’s spirit resounded. Of countless things, I know all there is. Of many more, I know much. In all Kuora, I know something of all things. But, of this Shin’dan, I know nothing.

Nero tensed. If his Dan’di’shan didn’t know, nobody would. Or… there might be one who knows, he realized.

Would Jan know, Dan’di’shan? Nero asked, feeding the final bite of the first Linny to the ritual and continuing to study the image.

Three humans, two men and a woman, stood in a square room alongside an arc of identical metal seedpods, each several times larger than the humans. Attached were thick, black cords disappearing through a central hole in the floor. They all appeared to have a small window and foreign glyphs on top.

Nero knew of no magic capable of crafting such a thing, or of crafting such a room.

Yes, Glanathiel said. Jan may know of this.

That is good, sent Nero. If he yet lives, I will undoubtedly see him on my journey.

The Vardenthine yet lives, Shin’dan. You will see him again.

It was a small comfort. Unfortunately, understanding what the shapes were, was not Nero’s greatest concern. He did not know any of the humans. And that was impossible. Can the Yal’irime do this, Dan’di’shan? Show me humans I have never met?

No. Without a resonating bond, it is not possible, Shin’dan. Are you certain you know none of these?

Breaking off another Linny, Nero bit down and focused on the human in the center. His appearance was not wholly foreign. In him, Nero saw familial features similar to his Gwarn’din–but utterly devoid of Elven traits.

The man was imploring the other two, arms extended, expression expectant. The mannerism felt familiar, and that, more than anything, gave Nero pause.

No, old friend. I am not sure. Do you know… Can the Yal’irime see into other planes of existence?