The Heartwood
From the Dirkwood to Just Outside of Talantal
Rameday, the Sixth Day of Yrick
Bekkah, Cesare, Keiko, Lyric, Kadri, Mikal, Pietro... Jerris, Mikkie, Thomas, Twyls, Pietro, the Barleys, the Blackhairs, the Heathersons, the Millers, Broke and the Guardians, Renyard, Small Blue Triangle... Romana and Kay, Dazi and Kisa, Tieg and Clarissa Larsen, Dominic Domini Korie, the Executioner, Tray Korie, Finn, Katshka, Rory and Ari and Dydd, Kevin and Dean and Erik, Father Canna and Brother Perrin, Anastasia and Jasmine and Felli... everybody...
It was a bar of light, purest white, and it split the heavens like a spear, so bright one could not look at it directly. The clouds above parted as it burned down from forever high like a pillar of silent fire. It struck home somewhere in the Dirkwood. Mikkie in the watchtower could see; from that high vantage, the green canopy impaled perhaps a mile or so from the treeline.
There was no sound, but for a moment, but for a single heartbeat.
And then there was the wind. A rustling of tree branches and the lazy guardsman could see the Forest ripple. In an ever growing circle, the wave ripped through the haunted woods, causing the trees to bend and shake, sending whatever birds hidden in the branches fleeing skyward. The wave dashed towards the treeline, so fast, faster than a dartling, and then it broke through. The wind came first, a pressure wave worthy of the strongest storm season tumult.
It was a ring of white, pure, ever expanding in its race outwards.
No house, no rock, no rock, no tree could stop it.
Then it ripped through all.
When it did, it did not burn.
It was the complete opposite of burning. It was the kindest touch, it warmed the heart, it brought sunlight to the shadows, and it filled one better than muffles for breakfast.
Every hair on Tomomi’s head suddenly stood out.
Pietro recognized the touch, how could he not? It was something more vital, purer and more important than thoughts of lances and arts martial. This was not a time for fighting.
It was Imperial.
No. Not Imperial in some manner of class or rank. It reminded him of the day he was made a Squire, and one of the young Cathedral novitiates grinned at him.
It was the smile of Lady Attera.
And then it was gone, racing ever outwards, bound for the far horizon.
