Dawn on the day of the full moon did not break over the Blackwood; it leaked in, a thin, grey slurry that did little to dispel the darkness beneath the canopy. The air tasted of ozone and impending thunder, though the sky visible through the broken atrium glass was a flat, featureless white.
The mood in the manor was one of grim focus, a silent monastery on the eve of a crusade. Agnes moved through the halls, placing small sachets of dried herbs and iron nails at every window and door—old, simple charms against "malice that thinks with gears, not guts." Lily had been up before first light, harvesting the silvery moss from her stone. She now ground it with rainwater in a marble mortar, creating a luminous paste that smelled of cold starlight and fresh-turned earth. "For the ears of the spirit," she explained quietly to Alex, dipping her fingers in the paste and gently anointing his temples. A shocking chill spread from the points of contact, followed by a sudden, crystalline clarity. The hum in his head didn't increase in volume, but its fidelity improved, as if he'd been listening through wool and now heard it through fine silk.
Sebastian emerged from his chambers dressed not in lordly attire, but in simple, durable trousers and a worn leather jerkin. His transformation was complete. The weary patriarch was gone, replaced by a warrior-elder. His eyes held the steady, patient burn of banked coals, and he carried a staff of black, petrified wood that seemed to absorb the weak light. He gathered them in the great hall.
"We move at noon," he announced, his voice carrying effortlessly in the vaulted space. "The forest's energy will be at its diurnal peak then, masking our passage. The Order operates on human schedules; they will expect any significant movement under cover of darkness. We will use their assumptions against them."
Elena, checking the straps on a tactical vest over her practical outdoor clothes, nodded. "Sun Tzu in the woods. I like it."
Kaela was the last to join, a silent shadow coalescing from a darkened doorway. She carried a long, cloth-wrapped bundle which she laid on the great table. Unwrapping it revealed two weapons: a modern, compact crossbow with a magazine of wicked-looking bolts, and an ancient, single-edged sword with a basket hilt, its blade dark and non-reflective. "Tools for different kinds of prey," she said simply, slinging the crossbow over her back and buckling the sword's scabbard to her belt.
Sebastian eyed the modern weapon but said nothing. Tradition was yielding to necessity.
Their final meal was a silent affair—hearty bread, strong cheese, dried venison. It was fuel, not a feast. As they finished, Sebastian rose.
"Now, we link," he said. "Not as individuals, but as a cell of the forest's will. It will be… intrusive. But it is necessary for the alignment."
He extended his hands. Reluctantly, Kaela placed hers in his right. After a heartbeat's hesitation, Elena took his left. Lily stood before Alex, her moss-smeared hands held out, palms up. He took them. Her skin was cool, her grip firm. The moment their hands connected, the clarified hum in Alex's head jumped. It was no longer a sensation he alone perceived. He felt a cascade of impressions that were not his own:
—A deep, resonant thrum of ancient power and profound sorrow (Sebastian).
—A taut, vibrating wire of defiance and fierce, protective love (Kaela).
—A sharp, clear lens of duty and reeling, adaptive logic (Elena).
—A quiet, deep pool of receptive knowledge and blooming understanding (Lily).
And his own—a chaotic, resonant antenna, picking up the broadcast of the world around him, filtering it through human fear and burgeoning purpose.
For a moment, it was a deafening psychic cacophony. Then, Lily's presence acted as a filter, a gentle guide. She did not force harmony, but created a space where their distinct "notes" could exist side-by-side without clashing. Alex felt his own panic subside, felt Kaela's defensive walls lower a fraction, sensed Elena's analytical mind accepting the impossible data stream.
"We are not one mind," Sebastian's voice sounded both in their ears and directly in their consciousness. "We are a grove. Separate trees, sharing roots. Use this. In the chaos to come, you will know each other's position, each other's peril. Do not fight the connection. Let it flow."
He broke the contact. The immediate, overwhelming flood of sensation receded, but a faint echo remained—a ghostly awareness of the others in his periphery, like seeing shapes from the corner of his eye.
Noon arrived. The white sky had darkened to the color of a bruise. The air was utterly still, the forest holding a breath that was centuries deep.
They left the manor not through a door, but through a hidden passage in the wine cellar that opened into a natural limestone tunnel. Sebastian led the way, a faint amber glow emanating from his staff, illuminating slick walls and the quiet drip of water. They walked for what felt like miles in the absolute dark, the only sounds their footfalls and the distant, sub-audible vibration of the waking Stones.
When they finally emerged, it was into a part of the Blackwood Alex had never seen. The trees here were giants, their trunks wider than cars, their branches forming a cathedral ceiling hundreds of feet high. The undergrowth was sparse, the ground a carpet of deep, soft moss that silenced their steps. The light was a dim, green-gold twilight, filtering down in dusty shafts.
This was the Old Grove. The heart before the heart.
Sebastian paused, placing his hand on the bark of the nearest titan. He closed his eyes. "They are already there," he murmured, his voice grave. "The Order. At the eastern approach. More than we anticipated. Heavy machinery. They are not planning a skirmish. They are planning an excavation."
The shared connection flickered with a spike of alarm from Elena, grim resolve from Kaela.
"Then we adjust," Kaela said, her hand going to the hilt of her dark sword. "Lily, Alex, with my father. Straight to the circle. Elena, you're with me. We'll be the thorn in their side. Slow them down, break their formations before they can deploy."
Elena nodded, chambering a round in her large-caliber pistol. "Disruption and dispersal. I can work with that."
"No killing unless there is no other choice," Sebastian intoned, his eyes opening. "Every life taken on this ground tonight will be a poison in the ritual. We aim to wound their purpose, not their flesh."
They split then, under the watchful gaze of the ancient trees. Sebastian, Alex, and Lily moved with swift, silent purpose on a direct path towards the center of the grove. Alex felt the pull now, a tangible magnetic draw emanating from ahead. The hum was becoming a chord, a complex, beautiful, and terrifying harmony of planetary alignment and terrestrial power.
Kaela and Elena vanished into the green shadows to the east, their presence in Alex's mind receding to two points of focused, sharp intent.
After another twenty minutes of walking, the character of the forest changed again. The giant trees gave way to a wide, clear glen. And in the center, standing stark against the bruised sky, were the Whispering Stones.
They were larger than Alex had imagined, each monolith twice the height of a man, hewn from that same dark, non-reflective stone. They were covered in intricate, wind-and-water-worn carvings—spirals, knots, and shapes that hinted at beasts and constellations. They stood in a perfect circle, and in the very center lay a massive, flat altar stone, its surface polished smooth by millennia of weather and… something else.
The air within the circle crackled with static. Alex's hair stood on end. The paste on his temples felt like ice. The chord in his mind was now a symphony, majestic and overwhelming. He could see the energy—a shimmering, translucent haze that twisted the light, making the stones seem to waver like mirages.
"This is the place," Lily breathed, her eyes wide with reverence and terror. "Where the world is thin."
Sebastian stepped into the circle. The moment his foot crossed the invisible boundary between the outermost stones, the ambient energy flared. A low, deep boom, like a giant's heartbeat, echoed through the glen, felt in the bones more than heard.
From the eastern tree line, the sound of the forest was shattered by a new noise: the mechanical shriek of a high-powered drill, followed by the sharp, percussive cracks of gunfire—Elena's pistol, answered by the faster, lighter pops of automatic weapons.
The battle for the soul of the Blackwood had begun. The symphony of the Stones was about to be drowned out by the scream of engines and the clamor of war. Alex stood at the threshold, the antler knife heavy in his hand, the voices of the forest and his new-found grove shouting in his soul. The time for listening was over.
Now, they had to shout back.