Sylvara

Then the Ironway came. Foreman Brakk and his crews, with their saws and their steel rails, cutting a road for their engines straight through the Thornwild.

The fires reached our glade the summer I turned seventeen. Wenna would not leave her trees. She sent me away with a basket of saplings... and she stayed.

When the smoke cleared, the glade was ash. All that was left of Wenna was her staff... and one green shoot beside it.

I walked nine days to the Heart of the Wildwood, where no elf had gone for a thousand years. I put my hands on the roots... and I called.

And the forest answered. It grew through me. Antlers of living wood... thorns in my blood. I have not been alone since.

I came back with an army that had waited a thousand years to march. Eldhorn, the Antlered King. The treants of the deep wood. The briars themselves.

We tore up the rails. The thorns swallowed the engines whole. And Foreman Brakk ran back to the cities with nothing but his hat.

But Brakk did not come back alone. He went to the Leaf Council of Lindarel... my own people. He brought a chest of gold, and a contract.

They signed the southern Thornwild away. Every tree, every grove. And when I stood before them, they called me a wild thing... and banished me.

That year the spring came late. Verdessa, the Spring Wake, would not wake... and the whole forest waited, holding its breath.

Now Brakk's engines are coming back. More rails. More saws. More fire.

I still carry Wenna's acorns. Wherever they cut, I plant one. Every tree I plant is one more voice.

Let them come with their iron. I am the Wildheart of the Thornwild. Call... and the forest answers.