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He followed the path.

The seam of moss was darker than the surrounding floor, a gold thread running through the forest loam, and he did not know why he chose to place his foot where it was thickest, why he chose to follow a thing that a man of ledgers and boardrooms would have called nothing—a trick of the light, a coincidence that led nowhere. But the ring on his finger was warm, not with the pulse of the tree trunk, not with the breath of the living air, but with the warmth of a thing that recognized the ground beneath his feet, the warmth of a thing that had been waiting for him to find this particular arrangement of moss and earth and the memory of a path buried and now uncovered.

He walked.

The silver birches rose around him, their bark the colour of the light that was not light, their leaves the colour of things that trembled and then settled, and the gold thread of moss led him through them the way a river leads a thing that cannot swim.

The path beneath him changed.

It happened so gradually that he did not notice at first. The moss became something else—a darker earth, a soil pressed flat by something heavier than leaves, something that had passed this way many times.

He stopped.

He knelt.

He pressed his palm flat against the earth. It was warm. Not the warmth of the tree trunk, not the warmth of the ring, but the warmth of a thing that had been walked on by something heavy with purpose, the warmth of a thing that had received the weight of something that had been walking for a very long time.

He stood.

He walked.

The trees changed. The silver birches gave way to oaks so tall that their crowns closed overhead into a ceiling of leaves, and the light that fell through was green and gold and moved against the wind, touching his face and hands in directions that were not the directions of the air. The light obeyed something else, something that was the same as the path beneath his feet, the same as the certainty growing in him, the certainty that he was being led.

He walked until the oaks began to thin.

He walked until the ground beneath his feet changed to white stone, so clean and bright that it seemed to have been cut by a blade of light, stone that had been buried under centuries of moss and was now being uncovered by his passage, the moss receding from the edges as if it had been waiting for him to step onto it.

He stopped.

He touched the surface with his fingers. It was the same temperature as his skin, the same temperature as the ring, the same temperature as the heirlooms in his pocket.

He looked up.

The white stone path led into a tunnel of oaks. Their trunks were wider than houses, their branches woven together so tightly that the light ahead was not the green and gold of the forest canopy but a luminescence that did not cast shadows, a light that was the same as the light in the dream.

He said aloud, “I don’t know where I’m going.”

The words landed in the silence like stones dropped into deep water.

The silence did not answer.

He stepped onto the white stone.

The moment his foot touched it, the air became stiller, clearer. The colours of the leaves around him sharpened into hues he had no name for, colours that were not colours but the edges of colours, the shapes of colours, the memories of colours that had been waiting for him to see them.

He walked.

The tunnel of oaks enclosed him, the branches woven above him so tightly that he could not see the sky, could not see anything but the white stone beneath his feet and the luminescence ahead.

He walked until the tunnel ended.

He stood at the edge of a courtyard.

The courtyard was white stone, open to a sky of deep indigo, the same indigo that had been in the dream, the same indigo that had been in the pool. Two moons hung in that sky, one silver and one gold, their light falling on the white stone in a way that made it glow from within.

In the centre stood a tree of silver bark and leaves of beaten gold.

It was not a tree that had grown. It was a tree that had been placed, the way a thing is placed when it is the centre, the way a thing is placed when everything else is arranged around it.

Beneath the tree sat a figure robed in grey.

The figure did not move. He sat with his hands resting on his knees, palms open, the gesture of a thing that is receiving, the gesture of a thing that has been waiting to receive for a very long time.

Norland stood at the edge of the courtyard. The heirlooms were warm against his thigh. The ring pulsed with a rhythm that matched the slow breathing of the figure beneath the tree.

The figure lifted his head.

Norland saw the face of an elf who had not slept in a thousand years. His eyes were the colour of the sea before a storm.

The elf said, “You took the path.”

His voice was a low rumble that Norland felt in his chest, the same vibration as the hum that had risen from the ground.

Norland said, “I didn’t know I was choosing it.”

The elf said, “You didn’t. It chose you.”

Norland stood at the edge of the courtyard, the certainty growing in him that he had arrived somewhere he was meant to arrive, that the arrival was not an ending but a beginning, that the dread in his stomach was not fear of the elf but fear of what he would learn from him, because the elf looked as if he had been broken and put back together so many times that the cracks had become the pattern of the whole.

The elf said, “Do you know who I am?”

“No.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“No.”

“Do you know why you are here?”

“No.”

“Then you are exactly where you are supposed to be.”

The elf’s hands moved, the gesture of a thing that is inviting.

Norland stepped onto the white stone. It was warm beneath his feet, the same warmth as the stone of the path, the same warmth as the ring, the same warmth as the heirlooms.

He walked across the courtyard. The tree rose before him, the light of the two moons falling through its branches so that the leaves seemed to move even when the air was still.

He stopped at the base of the tree.

The elf said, “You were in a dream.”

“Yes.”

“You are still in a dream.”

“The woman,” Norland said. “She pointed to the water. She said she had been waiting for me.”

“She has been waiting for you for a very long time.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will.”

The elf opened his hands. In his palms were two leaves, gold, the same gold as the leaves of the tree above him.

“Take them.”

Norland reached out his hand. The ring pulsed. The heirlooms warmed. The air around him stilled.

He took the leaves. They were warm. They were not leaves. They were the pages of a book folded so tightly that they had become the shape of leaves.

He unfolded them.

The writing was in the same script as the words in the ledger he had left behind, the same script he could not read but understood. He felt the meaning of the writing as pressure behind his eyes, the same pressure that had been the shape of the vision that had shattered.

The pressure bloomed.

It was a migraine, a flower of broken glass that opened behind his eyes. The words were a name. The name was the palace. The palace was not built. It was grown. And it was growing right now, beneath him, around him, waiting for him to step through.

Norland said, “I don’t want to be the thing that destroys it.”

The elf said, “You are not the thing that destroys it. You are the thing that wakes it.”

“The queen called me a wound.”

“You are a wound. But a wound is not the same as a poison. A wound heals. A wound is the place where the skin remembers it has been torn. A wound is the place where the body is doing the work of becoming whole again. A wound is not the thing that kills the body. It is the thing that shows the body it is alive.”

Norland looked at the leaves in his hands. They were no longer leaves. They were a map, written in the same script he could not read but understood.

The map showed the forest. The path. The courtyard. The tree. The palace.

It was not the palace he had seen in the pool. It was a palace of silver stone and golden leaves, a palace that rose from the forest floor the same way the tree rose from the courtyard floor, a palace that was waiting for him to enter.

He looked at the elf. His eyes were closed. His hands were empty. His face was the face of a thing that had done what it had been waiting to do.

Norland said, “I don’t know how to thank you.”

The elf did not answer. His breath was the slow, rhythmic pulse of a thing that was sleeping, a thing that had finally allowed itself to sleep after a very long time of waiting.

Norland stood at the base of the tree, the leaves of beaten gold falling around him, the two moons hanging above him, the map in his hands, the ring pulsing with the rhythm of the elf’s slow breathing, the heirlooms warm against his thigh.

He turned.

He walked across the courtyard.

He walked to the edge of the courtyard, to the path of white stone that led out.

He looked back. The elf was sitting beneath the tree. His eyes were closed. His hands were empty.

Norland stepped onto the path.

He walked through the tunnel of oaks. The light of the two moons fell through the leaves so that the path seemed to glow from within.

He walked until the tunnel ended. The oaks gave way to silver birches. The silver birches gave way to the forest he had entered, the forest so beautiful that it could break him open and he would thank it for the destruction.

He walked until the path of white stone ended.

He stood at the edge of a clearing open to the sky of the honey-light that was fading, the sky of the light between sunset and night.

He looked at the map in his hands. It had changed. It no longer showed the forest, the path, the courtyard, the tree. It showed only the palace of silver stone and golden leaves.

He looked at the clearing.

At the far edge, the forest rose again into a wall of ancient oaks.

Between two of those trunks, straight and precise as if cut by a blade of light, was a door. It was made of the same white stone as the path, the same white stone as the courtyard.

The door was open.

He walked toward it.

The heirlooms were warm. The ring was warm. The map was warm.

He walked toward the palace.

He walked toward the woman who said she had been waiting for him.

He walked toward the arrival that was not an ending but a beginning.

He walked toward the dread that was not fear of what was ahead but fear of what he would become when he arrived.

He walked.