A Dance of Crow and Iron
East, where the long-standing forests cast their gloomiest shadows, and moonlight found it difficult to penetrate the heavy canopy, a shadow glided. It moved along the forest ground with a spectral ease, the cloak spread just enough to rustle along the dead leaves, a noise almost too quiet to hear. Each movement was cautious, measured, as if the forest itself would reveal it. Across the clearing from them, another figure appeared, going with the same deliberate slowness, the night coiling around them like a silent crowd.
They halted at the center, the pale silver light of the moon glinting on edges of their bodies, elongating their shadows into long, nervous forms on the irregular ground. Neither of them spoke. Their gazes met, keen and unwavering, fires of unspoken intensity flickering behind the darkness. The forest held its breath, expecting the inevitable to emerge.
