The keening sliced through the morning mist like a rusted blade, and Ruki knew that another of the forest guardians had lost a child.
He pressed his palm against the woven walls of his tree-dwelling. Through the gaps in the braided branches, he could see the other druids emerging from their homes, their antlered silhouettes gathering at the massive oak. It had been the pride of their grove. Now its leaves hung black and withered, its bark split with veins of sickly yellow that wept a foul-smelling sap.
Beside the dying tree, a giant elk-like creature swayed on its legs, scales of bark and leaves rustling with each shuddering breath. Its branch-like antlers, usually crowned with blooms, drooped bare and brittle. At the base of the oak, barely visible among the blighted roots, lay a small, twisted form that should have been its offspring, a sapling born dead, poisoned before it could taste its first sunrise.
A firm hand caught Ruki’s shoulder.
His mother commanded, “The morning meal won’t prepare itself. Being the chief’s son doesn’t mean you can ignore your duties.”
Ruki turned away, meeting his mother’s stern gaze. Her antlers caught the filtered sunlight. “I was just… worried.”
“I know.” She guided him toward the communal cooking area where dozens of his people prepared the morning meal together, the symphony of the chopping of vegetables and the bubble of stews in clay pots rising to his ears. “Worry won’t fill empty bellies. Your sister is already at the fire pit.”
Ruki found Seylin adding dried mushrooms to a bubbling pot. Her antlers were still soft with youth’s velvet. She glanced up at his approached. “Did you hear it too?” she whispered.
“Everyone heard it.” Ruki settled beside her and picked up a knife, the familiar weight of it grounding him as he began peeling tubers, cutting their purple skin away in long curling ribbons. “They’ll send me away soon.” The words tumbled from his lips. “To the north. To find the cure.”
Seylin’s hands stilled over the pot. “You don’t know that.”
“I’m the only one who can talk the blighted lands without dying.”
Seylin looked up at his horns then, curved dark things that marked him as different from the rest of them. The morning light caught the deep purple in his eyes, so unlike the forest-green of their people. Whorls of shadow spiraled up his limbs, patterns that came with blood that was not of the forest.
"Morning blessings," Kimyo's voice rang out across the cooking area. Her antlers caught the light like polished beechwood, adorned with small blue flowers that matched her eyes, as she moved between the other druids, touching foreheads with the elders.
Ruki straightened his spine and forced his shoulders back, suddenly aware of how he'd been hunching over the tubers. He made his knife work look effortless, each slice precise and confident, though his heart still hammered against his ribs.
When Kimyo finally turned to them, her smile was like spring after a hard winter. "And good morning to you both." She crouched beside the fire pit.
"Tell him he's being foolish," Seylin said pleadingly. "He worries they'll send him north to the deadlands."
"Worried?" He forced a laugh. "Who said anything about worried? I'd welcome the chance." He set down his knife with deliberate care, meeting Kimyo's gaze. "The grove needs a cure. If my blood protects me from the blight, then it's my duty to use that gift."
Kimyo's eyes widened slightly, and Seylin snorted. "You can barely face the wild boars that root through our gardens."
"That was different," Ruki protested, heat rising to his cheeks. "I was twelve summers old."
Once everything was ready, the tribe assembled in their customary circle, passing wooden bowls filled with the previous day's harvest from one person to the next. Ruki received his share with gratitude, feeling the warmth seep through the carved elm into his hands. Steam rose from the blend of roasted roots, mushrooms, and herb-flavored broth.
He settled between Seylin and another young druid. Opposite him, Ruki's father occupied his place as chief. Though he ate quietly, Ruki noticed the tension in his father's jaw and how his fingers clutched the bowl too firmly.
As the sun climbed higher, burning away the last wisps of morning mist, the druids dispersed to their daily tasks. Some tended the healthy trees that still remained, coaxing growth from their branches. Others worked the gardens. Ruki found himself drawn to the forge, where the smith-druids shaped living wood into tools and weapons, their magic binding the grain into forms both beautiful and functional.
Night fell swiftly. As Ruki ascended to his room at the canopy of his family's home, he discovered Seylin already slumbering, nestled on her mat. On the shelf near the entrance, a potion awaited him. The clear bottle contained a rich, orange liquid. He drank it. Its flavor was sweet with a hint of metal. He downed the vial in a single gulp, and immediately craved for more, though he knew he wouldn't receive another for a week. He lied on his sleeping mat, listening to the familiar rustling of leaves, but sleep evaded him. The image of the forest guardian's sorrow kept resurfacing in his mind.
He overheard voices wafting from the council chamber below. His father's deep voice, the thin tones of Elder Yashin, and several others he couldn't quite identify. Ruki quietly got off his mat and crept toward wall shared with the stairwell.
"—runners returned at twilight. The Ashwalker tribes refuse to assist. They claim their own groves are perishing and they can't spare anyone." That was Elder Yashin, her voice edged with frustration.
"The Thornwood clan has completely closed their borders. They won't risk the blight spreading to their lands."
"And the Moonpetal druids?" Keeper Harun inquired.
"No news in three moons," his father responded. "The last messenger hawk came back with its letter unopened. They've either deserted their grove or worse.”
"And what about Mingyue?" Another voice, one of the younger council members, asked.
"Silent," his father replied heavily. "We've sent three birds. None have returned, not even to decline our request. Either the blight has reached them, or..."
"Or they've chosen to break their alliance," Elder Yashin concluded. "Just like all the others."
A long silence stretched between them. Ruki could hear the soft crackling of the council fire, the occasional pop of sap from the burning wood.
"Then we must send one of our own," Keeper Harun said at last. "Someone who can survive the journey north, who can walk the blighted lands without succumbing."
"He's untested," his mother’s voice came. "Nineteen summers is not enough to face what lies beyond our borders. The twisted things that hunt in those lands..."
"What choice do we have?" Keeper Harun's voice was gentle but firm. "Every day we delay, another tree falls. Another forest guardian loses its young. They are getting older. Soon there will be nothing left to save."
Ruki rose from his mat and descended the spiral stairs carved into the trunk's interior. The wood beneath his bare feet was warm and alive, pulsing with the tree's sluggish heartbeat, his bare feet finding each familiar knot and curve without thought. He pushed aside the moss curtain that separated the council chamber from the rest of the dwelling.
If they were discussing his fate, he would face it directly.
"I'll go."
The words left Ruki's mouth before he could second-guess them.
The council members turned as one, their faces a mixture of surprise and resignation. His father's expression remained unreadable, though something flickered in his forest-green eyes. Pride, perhaps, or sorrow.
"You were listening," Elder Yashin observed, though not without disapproval.
"The walls are thin," Ruki replied, stepping fully into the chamber. The firelight cast dancing shadows across the carved walls, making the ancient runes seem to writhe. "And my hearing is... sharper than most." Another gift of his mixed blood, though he didn't say it.
"My son," the chief addressed him, turning to meet his gaze. The wrinkles on his worn face appeared more pronounced in the dim light. "You will depart when summer comes."
Summer arrived sooner than Ruki had anticipated. He had spent the previous weeks preparing for the journey and bidding farewell to his tribe.
On the first day of summer, Ruki walked with the chief to the ceremonial area by the old oak. His mother held a pair of shears, her hands shaking slightly, revealing the composed facade she maintained. "We need to get you ready."
His mother's fingers traced the base of his horns, the bone warm and alive beneath her touch. "These have grown strong," she whispered, her voice breaking. "Twenty summers of growth."
"They will grow again," Ruki said, although in truth he did not know whether they would.
The first cut sent lightning through his skull. He bit down on the leather strip his father had placed between his teeth, tasting the tanned hide of the forest elk. Each grinding stroke of the bone saw felt like an eternity, the sound reverberating through his jaw and into his chest. Warm blood trickled down his temples, mixing with the tears he refused to acknowledge.
When the horns fell to the mossy ground with a dull thud, , Ruki's head throbbed with a deep, hollow ache, as if essential parts of his soul had been carved away along with the bone.
"The clothes," an elder druid stepped forward, carrying a bundle of rough-spun fabric. The material felt coarse against Ruki's skin, nothing like the soft moss-weave he had worn all his life. The boots were worst of all—stiff leather that imprisoned his feet, cutting him off from the earth's whispers
"Rise," his father said, extending a hand to help him stand. The world tilted slightly; without his horns, Ruki's balance felt wrong.
"You look..." his mother couldn't finish.
Ruki no longer recognized the reflection in her wet eyes. Without his horns and wearing strange clothing, he looked like a stranger—exactly as intended.
"Like one of them," Ruki said.
"Perhaps it is fitting. To save the old ways, you must walk among those who would destroy us." Keeper Harun said.
The chief approached carrying a leather pack, its weight a burden on his shoulders. Inside, Ruki knew, were the potions painstakingly prepared by their healers over months, along with a weapon.
Only the chief accompanied him to the stones that marked the boundary of their tribe's land.
Ruki's mind drifted to the tales told by traders—of cities where stone replaced living wood, where the air was filled with smoke and metal instead of moss and rain. Here, surrounded by his people, he had never truly experienced solitude. He slept nestled with his little sister, shared meals with the entire tribe, and worked alongside his uncles and aunts. The feeling of loneliness already pressed against his chest like a tangible weight.
Ruki spoke softly, "Father, I don't wish to go."
"We all have roles to fulfill for the tribe's survival," the chief replied gently. "When I welcomed you into our family, I knew you would play a crucial role. You must cross the blighted lands and reach Mingyue. There is a dragon named Yuheng, whose breath is said to revive dead plants. If you can't find him, then seek out one of his students. Capture one if necessary. You must do whatever is required for our survival, no matter what it entails."
With those words, the chief turned and walked back home, leaving Ruki alone at the forest's edge.
