Location:Whisperwood Collective — Great Library of Aelindor
Date/Time:Early Sparkfall, 9939 AZI
Realm:High Realm (Elven Territories)
The roots were humming.
Not the gentle pulse that Sylphara Moonwhisper had lived with for fifteen thousand years — the slow, tidal rhythm of the Worldtree's seventh daughter breathing essence through heartwood older than civilization. She knew that rhythm the way she knew her own pulse. Had fallen asleep to it more nights than she could count, curled in her study deep beneath the Library's living floor, surrounded by texts that predated the Zartonesh invasions.
This was different.
Sylphara set down her quill — she'd been annotating a pre-Sundering treatise on essence-bonded architecture, cross-referencing it against Thorgrund's latest correspondence — and pressed both palms flat against the desk. The wood was warm. Not sun-warm. Not essence-warm. Alive-warm, the way a heartbeat felt through skin.
