He was coming. That much was clear to all. Not everyone was as excited about it as the mother mossbears, though. While most stood frozen in terror, barely daring to breathe, the shadow-thieving male slipped away without a sound, vanishing into the dark. His pack-mate, the sword-wielding woman, didn’t hesitate and followed. She dashed to the forest’s edge, aiming for the gap between the two mother mossbears. Foolish, really - both clearly underestimated the mothers’ might and the sway they held over the forest.

  Even I, with forest sight not my own, felt every step of the female and could see the male moving through the shadows under the moss. No wonder, then, that when the mother mossbears gave a low grunt, the same shoots binding me earlier burst from the earth beneath their feet. To his obvious surprise, the shoots dragged the male right out of his shadowy refuge. The female wasn’t any lucky either, though she hacked at the shoots with everything she had. In the end, both were trapped, tangled so tight they couldn’t even cry for help.

  ?Foolishness,? the words rumbled from my throat, echoed by the mother mossbear's approving grunt.

  ?Esu will decide.?

  'Who's the bigger fool here, me or them?' The question came unbidden as I perked my ears. He really was coming - no mistaking it now. The treetops shivered with his approach, and the ground soon followed, trembling under his steps. A dozen pointless thoughts raced through my mind: putting on the shirt Deckard was holding and I hadn’t had a chance to put on, maybe asking for trousers.

  Not the question I asked at the end.

  Awkward as it was to be bare again, putting on clothes wouldn’t help. If anything, they would only make things worse. The Lord of the Forest, a mighty beast, was coming to judge ME, my mutations, NOT clothes. Whether to kill me, or…? Well, with some ideas straight out of your nightmares, I couldn’t begin to guess. And truth be told? That wasn't the only thing I was lost on. Did I want him to call me human? Or to claim me as one of his own? Perhaps it might even be better if he just put me out of my misery.

  "H-Have you ever met him? The…the Lord of the Forest I mean."

  "Once or twice," Deckard said, his gaze locked on the heart of Esulmor, like everyone else’s. "Never spoke to him, though. That’s what the others were for."

  "Beast talkers?"

  His chuckle lingered in my mind, rough and faint. "No, no. The Emperor and the Dukes. The Lord of the Forest doesn’t need anyone to speak for him - he speaks Standard just fine."

  "What?" Understanding beast talk was one thing. Despite that, what I actually still heard was the growls, the neighs, the barks and the meows. My brain just made sense of it. But a beast speaking in plain human words? That was weird, even to think about. "H-how… how am I supposed to talk to him, then?"

  "Think, girl. You already know."

  'Do I? Yeah I do.' Not only did I not know how to really speak Standard in my human form - using a weave was basically lying - he was coming, not to hear my words, but to see me. The beast me. 'And I couldn't say a word in Standard in this form. So… beast talk it was.'

  Not that clarifying that would give me any peace of mind.

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  The closer his footsteps got, the louder my heart pounded in my chest. And then when the trees shifted aside to let him through, I forgot to breathe altogether. It wasn't just me. Even the mother mossbears went silent, as if the whole forest held its breath. Before long, through the rising smoke at the edge of the blackened clearing, he stepped into view.

  I might have been too far away for the Lattice to tell me more, but I knew right away - that had to be the Lord of the Forest.

  In those first breathless moments, I had a hard time wrapping my head around what I was looking at. That wasn’t just some giant beast - it was a walking hillside, covered in moss, grass, flowers, and full-grown trees. Never in my life had I dreamed something like that could exist. I had read about dragons, yeah, and seen paintings of other monsters and dinosaurs. But nothing - nothing - could’ve prepared me to stand before something so impossibly massive… and alive.

  'Maybe if I stood…? NO! Definitely not!’

  Without a second thought, I shook the stupid idea out of my head. It wouldn't make any difference even if I stood on my toes. The Lord of the Forest loomed, dwarfing the mother mossbears, four times my height - no closer to five.

  As my heart made its first cautious beats and I drew in some air, my initial shock began to loosen its hold. Not my fear, though. Not the respect. No one could stand before that beast and feel anything less. To the Lord of the Forest, I was nothing. Less than nothing - just an ant.

  At last, with some air in my lungs, my mind, slow as it was, began dragging itself up to speed with what I was seeing.

  The Lord of the Forest was massive, like a living hill draped in moss so thick you couldn’t even see his fur. I would swear critters had made burrows in it. And those antlers - tits above - they shot up past the treetops, wider and grander than anything growing around. Not like mine, oh no. Mine were a joke in comparison. His started white as bone at the base, splitting again and again into endless tines, each one tangled with moss so thick it looked like a forest crown. Vines hung down from them, long enough to brush the ground. For fuck’s sake, birds had nests up there, and squirrels were having a grand chase through it all, as if they didn’t care a whit about the giant they were racing on - his presence.

  And what a presence it was.

  No doubt, this beast was far stronger than the mother mossbears. If I were to trust my instincts, he was ten times stronger than me. Yes, next to him, I truly was nothing but a scrawny little mouse - and there was no shame in that. He was so mighty that his strength was all my instincts were telling me. I was neither overcome by the urge to flee, nor to lie flat on my back and hope for the Lord of the Forest's mercy.

  'Come on, what am I supposed to do?'

  But no matter how much I urged them for guidance, my instincts remained silent. Never had that happened before, and it made my blood run cold. Not only was I clueless about what to do in the presence of such a beast, I realized how much I relied on my instincts.

  'Was it stupid? No.' Sitting on my heels doing nothing - that was stupid. So, I did the first thing I could think of: bowed low, my head striking the dirt.

  Still tied to the forest, I then watched the Lord of the Forest study the clearing, his eyes sweeping over everything and everyone. Considering the way I perceive my surroundings right now, I assumed just a force of habit. Unsurprisingly, though, his gaze lingered on the corpses of his progeny.

  ?I. See.? His growl rumbled deep, shaking me to the core. There wasn’t anger in it, though - only sadness. Seeing them dead, it weighed on him, heavy and bitter. Clearly, excellent healers that the mossbears were, death was something even they were powerless to surmount.

  It made me question my ability, or rather the might of the Fae and their decision to engrave the Never-Dying runes on my chest.

  ?They. Returned. To the. Forest.? He spoke with the weight of centuries, his words slow, each one measured, every pause deliberate. The behemoth was old, older than I dared guess. And still, for all the pain he must have carried, his tone softened when he spoke of his young.

  Then, when the hairs all over my body bristled, I braved a glance up. The Lord of the Forest's eyes burned bright emerald, his antlers gleaming with the same light. Then, in what couldn't have been any longer than a heartbeat, that glow traveled from the very top of his antlers, down his legs to the ground, spreading out into the wide forest. The ground beneath me warmed with his power, and I whimpered, awe-struck as the scorched clearing blossomed into a lush, living Eden.

  ?Now. They. Are. With. The forest.?