The dryad leads without hesitation.
The route she chooses isn't a path so much as a quiet agreement—undergrowth thinning where she steps, the ground offering just enough resistance to guide rather than block. Branches shift aside as she passes. Not dramatically. Just enough to suggest the forest knows how to make room when it wants to.
If she weren't here, I suspect we'd still be circling.
The air changes first. Cooler. Older. The smell of damp bark and deep roots replaces the lighter green of the outer woods. Even the birds sound different—more distant, more careful.
We slow without being told to.
The ancient oak announces itself before it fully comes into view. Not by height alone, though it has that in abundance, but by the way everything else seems arranged around it—growth bending outward, space held open in a quiet radius. Its canopy spreads wide and heavy, limbs thick with age, as though the forest has chosen to bend rather than compete.
The dryad stops several paces short of the clearing's edge. Her hand lifts briefly, palm down—a gesture that asks for stillness, not permission.
We fan subtly into cover—brush, low trunks, the rise of earth doing the work for us. No straight lines. No silhouettes. Close enough to hear. Far enough to remain suggestion rather than presence.
Through the branches, I see movement.
Two men stand near the base of the ancient oak.
One paces, studied and restless. He is solidly built—broad through the shoulders, dense rather than bulky—strength carried in the easy way of someone who expects his body to answer when called upon. His studded leather is fitted and well kept. A narrow scar pulls faintly at the corner of his mouth when he speaks, lending his expressions a permanent edge of impatience. A shield rests against his back, positioned to be reached without urgency. A flail hangs at his side more like an afterthought than a promise.
The other stands where he was placed and hasn't moved since. Broader. Heavier. His studded leather is stretched tight across muscle earned the hard way, not trained for display. His neck is thick, his hair cropped short enough that pale scars along his scalp show when he turns his head. A heavy club rests against his shoulder, its head darkened and worn smooth with use. He shifts his weight, impatience building in the way stillness does when it's forced to wait.
Neither of them is cutting.
Instead, the ground around the oak bears the signs of intent without execution—chalk lines marking angles, rope measured and remeasured, stakes pressed into the earth and pulled free again. Two axes lean against a stone, untouched.
Preparation without commitment.
The dryad watches them in silence.
I follow her gaze, understanding settling into place without commentary. Whatever this is, it hasn't stalled because the task is simple—it isn't. The ancient oak is massive, defiant in its age, a thing grown patiently and without apology.
Ahead, the pacing man gestures sharply toward the trunk as he talks, movements precise and economical.
"I'm not saying we rush it," he says. "I'm saying we do it clean. Once we start, we don't stop halfway and leave a mess for someone else to deal with."
The larger man grunts.
"You said today," he says, then adds—flat, pointed—"Caldo."
There's no accusation in it. Just expectation—the kind built from hearing the same promise before.
"And today it will be," Caldo replies easily. "You know that. I wouldn't drag this out unless it mattered."
A pause. Then, quieter:
"Wouldn't be the first time."
Caldo exhales through his nose. "You always remember the wrong parts, Krumm."
"Because you remember the talking," Krumm says. "I remember the waiting."
Caldo stops.
"And I remember you breaking things because patience isn't your strength," he says. "So we do this my way."
Krumm's hand comes down against the bark. Not a strike. A test. The sound is deep. Solid.
"Old," Krumm says. "Hard."
"Like you," Caldo answers. "Which is why I need you steady when it starts."
Another pause. Familiar. Settled.
Krumm shifts his weight, the club scraping softly against the bark.
Rope shifts. Metal clicks softly.
"They'll be along soon enough," Caldo continues. "And when they are, we work through the evening. Less time wasted. Fewer mistakes. I'm not thinning the take unless I have to."
Krumm snorts softly, more breath than sound, and says nothing.
The dryad doesn't react outwardly, but I feel the change beside me—the way her attention tightens, focused not on the men themselves, but on the certainty binding their words together.
This isn't a disagreement waiting to happen.
It's an understanding.
I study the space around the oak—the rope laid out but untouched, the axes left where no one has bothered to lift them, the way both men keep glancing down the path between exchanges.
Whatever they're waiting for hasn't arrived.
The decision comes quickly.
I shift just enough to be seen and hold the lute out behind me—deliberate, visible. A signal. Whatever they expect me to be, it won't be that.
Imoen takes it without comment, fingers closing around the neck with care.
Before I step forward, I murmur to Xan, "Can you… help?"
He doesn't ask how.
He leans in just enough for his voice to carry only to me.
"Likeable is not the same as trusted."
"I know."
The spell settles anyway—light as a breath, unpleasant in the way all enchantments are when you notice them working.
I draw in a slow breath and step forward alone.
Grass whispers under my boots.
Caldo notices immediately. His head lifts, eyes narrowing as he measures the distance between us—the space I've deliberately put between myself and the others.
Krumm reacts faster.
His club comes up, fingers tightening around the handle. He glares at me like I've done something wrong just by existing, shoulders bunching as though he expects the trees themselves to move.
I stop well short of them, hands open. Empty.
"Easy," I say, keeping my voice level. Confident. Garrick's words surface unbidden: Presence creates meaning whether you ask it to or not.
"I'm not here to interfere."
Caldo's gaze flicks briefly to my hands, then back to my face.
"Name yourself."
"I'm a surveyor," I say without hesitation. "From Nashkel. I study the land—flora, wildlife. Places people tend to overlook."
Krumm snorts. The club doesn't lower.
I gesture—not at them, but at the ancient oak.
"Impressive specimen," I continue. "You don't see growth like this often. Not without protection."
Caldo's expression shifts—just a fraction.
"Protection?"
I nod, as though it's obvious. "Trees this old don't survive by accident. I was curious if you knew how it managed to remain undisturbed for so long."
For a moment, neither answers.
Krumm's gaze slides toward the trunk, then away. His jaw tightens. He takes a small step back before he seems to realize it.
Caldo frowns. Not confused. Calculating.
"I've heard theories," I say carefully. "Surveyors hear a lot of them."
I let the silence stretch.
"Some believe places like this endure because someone watches over them," I say at last. "A spirit, bound to the land. Not out of malice—out of grief."
Krumm sucks in a sharp breath.
"You telling ghost stories now?" Caldo asks.
"I'm explaining patterns," I reply evenly. "There was a man, years ago. Lost someone he loved to illness. Buried her here, with the things she cherished. Planted the tree as a marker. A symbol of rebirth."
My tone stays measured. Academic. Detached.
"When he died—old, still mourning—it's said his spirit lingered. Not restless. Just… unwilling to leave her unguarded."
Krumm shifts, grip tightening until his knuckles pale.
"Caldo," he mutters, eyes fixed on the darkening canopy. "It's getting late. And I don't like this place."
A leaf rustles to my left—barely more than a breath of sound.
Krumm flinches.
Caldo snaps his gaze toward him.
"Hold."
The club doesn't lower—but it stops rising.
Caldo turns back to me. He doesn't raise his voice. That, more than the words, stills the clearing.
"Doesn't matter what stories you've heard," he says.
"Light's going. The others aren't here. And I'm not testing conditions I don't control."
His eyes flick—briefly, unwillingly—to the ancient oak.
"We withdraw."
Krumm blinks. "What?"
"Today was conditional," Caldo snaps. "Those conditions aren't met."
His gaze returns to me, hard and unreadable.
"This isn't finished."
Krumm hesitates, breath shallow. Then, reluctantly, he lowers the club a few inches. Not enough to rest. Enough to obey.
Caldo nods once.
"Move."
They back away together, slow at first.
"Going to have to turn them around," Krumm mutters.
"I know," Caldo replies. "And when we do, I want answers. Nashkel's small. Someone will know something."
Their voices fade as they disappear into the trees.
Only then do I let myself breathe again.
Not relief.
Just time—borrowed, uncertain, and already ticking away.
We don't move for several breaths after they're gone.
The clearing feels larger without them in it. Emptier. As though the forest has exhaled and hasn't quite decided whether to inhale again.
I turn back toward the others.
Imoen meets my eyes first. There's a brightness there she doesn't bother to hide—something between surprise and amusement.
"Well," she says lightly, handing the lute back. "That was… unexpectedly smooth."
Her fingers linger a moment longer than necessary before she lets go.
"Most people would've talked themselves into a fight halfway through."
Rasaad inclines his head slightly.
"You acted with intention," he says. "You understood the weight of timing. That often spares suffering before blades ever leave their sheaths."
Branwen exhales, folding her arms as her gaze returns to the path Caldo and Krumm took.
"They will return," she says, certainty outweighing rebuke. "But Tempus does not demand battle where victory is bought without it."
Xan, who has been watching the edge of the clearing rather than any of us, finally speaks.
"The enchantment had little bearing on the outcome," he says flatly. "Friends reduces resistance. It does not generate coherence."
His eyes flick briefly in my direction.
"The lie succeeded because it was internally consistent. Not because it was made pleasant."
The dryad has not moved.
She watches the space Caldo and Krumm vacated, attention fixed not on absence—but on inevitability.
"They will come again," she says quietly. "The balance here has been delayed, not restored."
Her gaze shifts to me.
"But you kept your word," she adds. "You did not draw steel where you said you would not."
I nod once.
"I know."
It isn't a promise.
Just an acknowledgment of the cost of choosing words over steel—and of how temporary that choice may yet prove to be.