Ronald looked around at the familiar vast expanse of low grass and the magnificent tree whose roots might wind around this entire world—if this even was a world.
He was here again.
Against his will this time.
Ronald lifted his hollow eyes towards the clouds, searching for even a glimpse of a leaf. He had married the avatar of this tree. Knowing the truth should have liberated him somehow, but it hadn't.
It only made the pain worse.
All that struggle, all those days crossing the desert and surviving orc hunting parties, all that devotion to reaching her, gone. She had been taken from him right before his eyes, and there was no way to get her back because this tree was her.
It had always been her.
Part of him wanted to burn it. Another part couldn't bear the thought of any harm coming to it.
Ronald drew a shaky breath. "You're wasting your time. I won't do anything you ask me to."
"Ronald…"
