Evras Willows called a small sphere of light to his hand and held it up to the ancient library door. The wood was pristine white, buzzing with the magic found in every tree of Storm Cloud Forest. He turned back, narrowed eyes scanning the chilled, silent hall. His fellow students – even that annoying upstart, Zierycke Tempest, slumbered soundly under his sleeping spell.

            The doors opened smoothly as he pushed them, but he ignored the bumps of unease that rose across his arms and the back of his neck as he stepped into the vast cavern. Of course Zatarri was watching. She was always watching.

            His eyes flitted from one spine to the next as he searched for information on the Forgotten Forest – where it all began. The legend of the God Maker, the tragedy of Leivarre, the fall of Silver Spun Glade’s spirit and her dryders. If he could find the pieces anywhere, then surely. Certainly, Zatarri would have them.

            Squelch. He shuddered as bursts of prismatic colors rippled around his boot. He hurriedly stepped back as more subdued and earthy greens, browns, and grays morphed into a lone willow tree in a sparkling river. Stunned, he knelt before the quivering image. He hadn’t expected to find Zatarri’s Pool of Colors here. Wouldn’t he have seen it before? Did it change location? Did she change its location?

            But it had reacted to his touch – however inadvertent – by showing him his family’s namesake. The elegant, stoic tree burdened by its majesty.

            His brows furrowed as shadows crept across the little spot of land the tree occupied within the river, and Evras directed his attention to the gathered clouds swollen with rain. In a brilliant flash of light, an oddly green hued golden strike of lightning lit the willow tree on fire. As it burned, he saw the silhouette of a wood elf emerge from the blazing trunk and reach for him, charred mouth open in a silent wail.

            He scrambled back, chest heaving. How had a vision so serene gone so wrong?

            Slender fingers closed around his shoulders, and he was on his feet before he realized just  whom they belonged to.

            “Clever trick,” came a musical purr in his ear. “The sleeping spell, I mean. Color me impressed that a man with a plant affinity could use a spell of shadow.”

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            He leapt away from Zatarri, who smiled in her beautiful elf form. As the season had just turned to autumn, her hair was a rich auburn and her eyes dark amber like wild honey. She tilted her head to the right as she regarded him, full lips pulled into a patronizing smile.

            “I see that nasty little boys see nasty little things,” she finally said, a finger at her cheek.

            Evras clenched his fists. “Do not toy with me, Spirit.”

            Zatarri tossed her head back with a sharp laugh. As she did so, her dagger-like fangs glinted in the light from Evras’s spell. When she looked at him again, her pupils had narrowed to slits, golden scales spreading from the corners of her draconic eyes to her temples and down her neck. Her jawline had sharpened.

            Evras imagined the chasm of her open mouth, should she shift fully into a dragon. The cat-like gleam of her eyes when she swallowed him like some mere rodent. Regardless of the terror her mere presence invoked, he was a leader. Weakness of any form was not an option.

            “Oh, dear child,” she crooned with a voice like tree sap – sticky with contempt. “You are in my domain. Seeking my knowledge. You are at my mercy.” She stalked in circles around him. “Seeing visions in my pool. You are a naughty little mouse, scurrying around in the dark when you could be tucked up in bed.”

            “Then you saw what I did? Is this where my life will lead?”

            “Well. It is one possibility.” She stood still, hands clasped behind her back as she pinned him with her gaze. “Nothing is set in stone.”

            “Was the burning man…was he me?” Evras hated himself for the tremor in his voice. The need for validation from this terrifying woman before him.

            Zatarri’s ears twitched slightly. “It doesn’t have to be. You could choose another subject of study. After all. You will follow in your father’s footsteps as lord of Xigg Village.”

            “Should I continue on my current path, should I possess the God Maker, will you do that to me?” He turned to point at the Pool of Colors, but it had vanished. He suppressed a shiver. Had Zatarri meant for him to see such a vision, then?

            “I am bound by the ancient laws of neutrality. Should you not threaten my forest, then you will be safe from my claws.” She turned away from him, heading for the exit.

            He whirled to watch her go, fury banishing his unease. “You are avoiding my question! Do you just not care about what happened to the Forgotten Forest? Do you not think it can happen to Storm Cloud Forest? To you?”

            She stopped just before she reached the doors and looked over her shoulder with cold, narrowed eyes. “A word of advice, my cheeky little mouse. Do not play with forces you cannot control.”