The scouts had confirmed that something besides him outside this forest knew what was inside it and had been paying attention to it, and the scouts going silent would produce a response on a timeline he could not precisely calculate.
He had done what he came to do.
Or the beginning of it.
The seven altars were activated. The seal was broken. The creature had acknowledged him — provisionally, conditionally, with the specific conditions of grow stronger and then we will talk about acknowledgment.
The blood was refining in his bones and organs and he was going to be a different kind of strong when it finished than he had been before the plainfield.
He should leave.
Not today — not with fifty percent remaining and the forest still offering what it offered and the creature still being whatever it was being in the space beneath the ring. But soon.
