Cara fiddled with her knife as she waited with the other leaders. The four Keepers Laotan, Pankar, Alatar, and Yantara carried more worry in their faces and their stances than Cara had ever seen upon them, as if they weren’t even trying to hide it now. Behind them stood a dozen or so of the top Prowlers, faces Cara recognized but, aside from Jeremy, Elivala, and Edana, struggled to put names to.

  Gramok, of course, towered over them all, yet even he wore a grim expression as he shoved a sandwich in his mouth while they waited. Beside him stood Ardic in his gilded plate armor with an axe as tall as he slung over his back, flanked by the grizzled dwarf Luther clad in simple robes with a gnarled staff in hand.

  Where in the Deep-Forest was Ted? He’d asked for a full war council to be set up, then scurried off without another word.

  Whatever his plan was, it had better be good. Kegan still hadn’t returned with his scouting party, but the few reports they’d had, plus the testimony of Eric and the dwarves, painted a devastatingly clear picture: the Destroyer was far beyond any foe they’d ever faced, his power outdone only by the depths of his savagery.

  They had to beat him, no matter the price. He couldn’t be allowed to end the Age of Freedom before it had a chance to escape from the depths.

  Her heart skipped a beat. There he was, finally making his way out of the trees with the dryad Finvarra on his right and his father Eric on his left.

  “What is that doing here?” Alatar said as the figures drew close, gesturing to Finvarra.

  Ted shot a glare his way. “Finvarra Solanbar So’maevka is here by my request, and by her right as representative of the Mages of the Great Forest.”

  Alatar’s glare intensified. “Mages are forbidden to the Great Forest.”

  “By who? The Emperor?” Ted let out a dark chuckle. “Don’t know if you noticed, Keeper, but the Emperor’s slain and his throne lies vacant. You’re welcome, by the way.”

  Alatar’s nostril flared. “And yet he lives even now. He walks by your side even now, his every step polluting our lands just as surely as that creature beside you.”

  Pankar twirled purple magic in his hand and slammed his staff against the forest floor. Telepathy magic rippled out, and he nodded to Ted. “Continue, Hero.”

  “Thank you.” Ted took a deep breath and cast his gaze across the faces before him. “We have a plan to fight the Destroyer. A way to do what needs to be done, no matter the cost.”

  Cara’s back stiffened up. Ted being this indirect could only mean that this was not what they wanted to hear.

  Ted bit at his lip and focused on a single face—Jeremy’s—amongst the council. “Runesmith Idonia and I have devised a method of channeling great power through the portal stone.”

  Luther shook his head. “A portal stone can’t generate enough power to challenge the Destroyer, lad.”

  “No,” Ted said, glancing down at the ground, “but it can channel it.”

  Cara frowned. There was no such power source in the Great Forest. Unless—

  Her blood ran cold. No. No way.

  Alatar’s mouth opened and closed, yet no sound came. He screamed silently, turning left and right, drawing no notice. The wood elves and Luther were too busy staring at Ted while Ardic and Gramok glanced around, the only poor souls unsure why the mood had dropped to that of ice.

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  The wrongness of the world crushed down upon Cara’s chest. The Great Forest, turned into a weapon? Its spirit burned away, its power turned to war and destruction? This could not be its fate.

  Pankar spoke first, his voice more frail than ever. “There’s no other way?”

  “I’d never suggest this if there was,” Ted said, the terrible truth of that shining through in his inability to lie. “I’m sure some of you will throw your lives away in a hopeless attempt to test that theory, and I will wish you well even as I know it cannot succeed. He’s too strong, too powerful.”

  Silence fell upon the council and the tree-song seethed. Pankar gave no signal as to his thoughts, nor did Yantara. Alatar’s silent shouting slowed but did not end, while Laotan’s brow furrowed and his shoulders tensed.

  Metal clanked as Ardic crossed his arms and cast his gaze across the others with a frown. “What exactly are you suggesting, Mage?”

  Ted pulled himself up straight and paused a moment before answering. “The Great Forest teems with the power of life. That can be wielded, as the dryads once did, but on a… wider scale.”

  A lump solidified in Cara’s throat, cutting off the bitter-sweet air of the Forest. Such foulness uttered so brazenly, and by Ted? He did not love the Forest as she did, how could he without hearing its song, and yet she’d deluded herself to think that he loved it as his home.

  Laotan stepped forward, trembling faintly with the rage that reverberated in the tree-song. “And the Forest?”

  “With time, and the Regrow spell we’ve recovered, the Forest will eventually heal.”

  “Eventually.” Laotan shook his head. “No. We will find another way.”

  Jeremy stuck his head around the tree and spoke up. “We should at least consider it, Keeper.”

  “Silence, Prowler,” Laotan snapped. “We are the guardians of the Great Forest until the end of time. We will not defile it, not now, not until the end of time. We vote, now, and I vote no.”

  A great silence fell upon the council. The vote had been called; it could not now be denied.

  Yantara was the first to dare speak into the void. “I vote yes.”

  Pankar leaned against his staff and swayed gently, and all hung waiting for his words. His gaze fixed upon Ted for one heartbeat after another, and his expression darkened. “You are absolutely certain there is no other way, Ted Tolabar So’aroasmaevka?”

  “I believe so,” Ted said, bowing his head. “I have faced him, and the dwarves have consulted their ancient records. Even a mana vortex would explode before building enough power to destroy him.”

  A cold, dark pit formed in Cara’s stomach. The Forest, the tree-song, that voice inside her—it screamed now with despair, with the swelling sea of suffering to come.

  Why? Why was the world like this? Why was it made so?

  The piercing gaze of Pankar continued until at last, he looked down and croaked, “I vote yes, though I ask our Prowlers to test the Destroyer’s strength first.”

  Alatar scowled and spat out with all his venom, “I vote no.”

  The gaze of all the wood elves fell upon Ardic, waiting upon his vote to break the deadlock.

  Ardic looked across their desperate and pleading faces, and shook his head. “I abstain. Not my Forest.”

  The tree-song tumbled and twisted, a rippling fog of dark relief flooding out across the deep, dreadful depths of despair.

  “Then it is settled,” Laotan declared. “You must find another way, one that does not rip our home from its roots and hack it to shreds with Dark magic.”

  “No,” Cara said, the word almost forcing itself from her.

  Laotan glared at her. “Silence, Prowler.”

  Cara looked at him, and saw him for what he was—terrified, clueless, desperately trying to do his best in a world he could no longer understand. That was all every Keeper had ever been, wasn’t it? Wood elves muddling through a world beyond their comprehension. “I said no, Laotan. It’s not settled, not yet—Tolabar’s voice will be heard from now until the end of time.”

  A look of disgust came upon Laotan and he stepped back. “Tolabar is dead.”

  “Tolabar is dead when the last of us give up on it.” Cara’s pulse quickened. Her Forest. Her home. She heard the song beneath, the silent sorrow stumbling beneath the weight of pain and fear. She felt its call, the call of the Forest, its need now for her voice to carry its own. “Many of you know me. You know I love the Forest. From the dawn of time, the Forest has nurtured us and we have protected it.”

  Laotan’s stiffness faded and he began to nod along, while Ted stared at her with that stiff face and that little upward curve at the left corner of his lips, and Jeremy watched, stony faced as ever.

  Cara pressed on, the words coming easier now. “The Forest is of the wood elves, and we are of the Forest. We are one.”

  Memories of patrolling in only the safest zones floated to the surface, of Jeremy’s denials of her pleas to help, of being told it was too dangerous.

  “We are its Rangers,” Cara said, pausing to wipe a tear from her eyes, “just as it is ours. Tolabar votes yes.”