Towering Far Above The Rest, The Heart Tree's Bone-white Bark Flashed Stark Against The Common Green

Towering far above the rest, the heart tree's bone-white bark flashed stark against the common green brush that sprawled across Old Harren's grounds, gleaming a cold alabaster as bright as his own cloak. Leaves spilled from slender grasping limbs like a million splayed hands dipped in blood. And upon its trunk, a face.

The visage had been slashed deep. If it was the work of man or god, Arthur could not say. Crimson sap oozed from slanted eyes like ancient tears, frozen dry upon pale drawn cheeks. It watched him with knowing disdain. A weirwood, he thought in awe. The last one standing below the Neck.

It was then that he saw the supplicant. A slight figure knelt before the heart tree, head bowed low in prayer. Slim as a winter sapling, and so still he might have mistaken it for carved stone. Scarcely more than a smudge of shadow upon the hard earth.

At the stir of their footfalls, the figure trembled slightly, then hopped to its feet with the swift grace of a startled doe and whirled.

It was… a girl-child. He’d not misjudged; even whilst standing she was a tiny slip of a thing. A strange thing. Her coltish frame was wrapped in a dove-grey gown, streaked with soil and trailing like morning mist about small bared feet. Dark chestnut hair tumbled loose and tangled past thin shoulders, framing windburnt cheeks flushed rosy with chill. Her eyes were sharp and wild, her teeth bared—and in her hands a tree branch, raised like a sword!

Not a little doe then, thought Arthur.

Then, a break in the clouds. A shaft of dying light broke through the clearing, striking the crown of the heart tree with sudden radiance. The deep scarlet leaves flared and shimmered like bloody embers. And there, half-lost amongst the high fronds, something swayed.

A shield. Upon it, the painted face of a weirwood, grinning wide and red.

Arthur froze.

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

Snippet from A Crown of False Spring, Chapter 4.