The Forest of Lights

This is a story I wrote for a sci-fi fantasy competition. Enjoy.

WATCHMAN CHAMBERLIN, the little patch read. Dyanne ran her finger over the embroidery again and stared out at the Forest.

She was now part of the Watch- the Watch! The noble sentinels who spent their days patrolling the three Walls that protected Ferrakho from the jungle that lurked beyond.

After so long, Dyanne had made her way up to the Watch. Now she could patrol the walls and prevent the spread of the creeping vines and malicious brambles that inched towards the City at all times, requiring vigilance and flamethrowers to keep at bay.

Currently, Dyanne was on the second Wall. There were three, of differing heights- the one furthest from the Forest was tallest. If the Forest conquered one Wall, it would find the next even harder to climb.

Watchmen lived tenuous lives between or on the Walls, in stone houses built into the massive barriers or situated between the Walls. Over time their little strongholds had grown bigger, although of course they would never be anywhere near as impressive as Ferrakho itself.

Ferrakho, the Iron City. One of the strongest cities on the planet, the last strongholds of humanity. It was the largest of the Walled Cities, the most prosperous, the City that gave nothing up and held the Forest at bay three hundred yards from its outermost Wall. For three hundred yards, the ground was scorched and barren, clear of any growing things. They would not allow the plants to come closer.

Dyanne knew the lore- the Forests on this planet were intelligent, too intelligent- smart enough to infect the minds of fragile little humans and drive them insane. The Forest was also filled with a veritable menagerie of deadly beasts, territorial birds, and venomous insects and snakes.

Just thinking about the danger hidden within the rustling depths made Dyanne shudder. She was glad for the heavy pack that adorned her shoulders, the tiny fireblaster hanging at her hip, and the flame-throwing turrets that lined the tops of the Walls. The pack was a safety measure for every Watchman- should they fall, they would not be hurt. All they had to do was activate the pack. They were all trained in its use- all of them knew the dangers of flying and how to avoid crashing themselves into the walls or ground.

The pack would fold out into a pair of mechanical wings. At the same time, the jets on the bottom would fire up, providing propulsion enough not only to land safely, but even to fly back up the wall if the Watchman were light enough. Dyanne was definitely light enough. The gravity on this planet was more lenient than on Old Earth, and the packs were designed to carry men twice her size. No, she’d always be alright if she fell.

She had seen the Forest a few times, but always from afar. Now… it was right there, in front of her. She could almost… reach out and touch it. Beyond three hundred yards of burnt, blackened, ashy ground lay that mesmerizing expanse of shadowed green.

“First time out?” said someone. Dyanne looked to her left; there was a man standing there, looking out at the Forest.

“Yes,” she said after a moment. “It is.”

“Mm,” he said. He was wearing his pack half-on, slung onto one shoulder. Dyanne wasn’t sure how that worked, since it was really heavy. “Wait ‘til the evening, then you’ll see what the Forest is really on about.”

Dyanne frowned. “Pardon?”

He grinned. “Love new ones. What’s your name?”

“Dyanne. Dyanne Chamberlin.”

 He stuck out a hand. “I’m Vance Rennick.”

Dyanne shook his hand almost gingerly. “Pleasure,” she said. Vance had slightly matted black hair and dark stubble coating his jaw and chin. His somewhat handsome face was twisted into a snarky grin for an expression most of the time, and Dyanne could tell he was the kind of guy who leaned on the flamethrower turret. The thin, pale divot of a scar ran diagonally across the left side of his forehead, clipping the outer end of his eyebrow and vanishing close to his cheekbone.

Vance glanced up, looking at the darkening sky. “It’ll be evening in an hour or so,” he said, noting that the sun was sinking towards the horizon. “You just wait ‘til then. Oh, you’ll love it. They all do.”

Befuddled, Dyanne simply nodded at him.

He shrugged, shaking his head with a grin.

Dyanne didn’t have anywhere to walk to- her post was only in this one spot, and it appeared that Vance was stationed right next to her. Well… alright. Apparently there would be no escaping him.

Fortunately, he didn’t seem inclined to talk much. Dyanne ignored him for about an hour.

Slowly the sky faded from blue to lavender, then blazed up in a flare of red and orange and yellow like fire on the southwestern horizon. Vance stirred next to Dyanne and tapped her on the shoulder, grinning. “Now look,” he said. “Really.”

As the sun vanished behind the Iron City, a change seemed to sweep over the Forest. The wind that whispered over the trees stilled- or perhaps the trees were moving of their own will, and became silent for another purpose. The ever-present birdcalls stopped, and the shadows seemed to darken dramatically.

Dyanne held her breath without realizing. Another sound permeated the air, quiet and intense, enough to make her ears tingle but not enough to actually hear. It was a deep humming sound, sourceless- it seemed to come from the very air around them.

Spinning around, Dyanne tried to find something to aim her fireblaster at. Vance laughed and caught her arm.

“Nah, wait,” he said, turning her back towards the forest. “You gotta keep your eyes on the Forest. It ain’t worth missin’ your first time seein’ the Forest at twilight.”

Still wary, Dyanne turned back to the Forest in time to see the shadows under the trees darken more and notice that suddenly, amongst those shadows, tiny lights had begun to appear.

“What?” she said, leaning forward. Vance chuckled quietly to her left; she ignored him.

The lights weren’t moving at first. They just stayed still, tiny pinprick starlights lodged in the trees. Then she saw larger glowing blotches- panels of blue and green and yellow, ribbons of green and red, starbursts of violet that glimmered softly- and some of them started to move. The pinpricks began to dance around like fireflies on speed. Dyanne trained her eyes onto a single oblong patch of light sky blue, gliding slowly along deep within the trees. She could tell it was on the ground because it would pass behind trunks and under leafy canopies from time to time and vanish from her sight, only to reappear again somewhere else.

A quick look around at the rest of the Walls let Dyanne know that most of the other Watchmen were also staring raptly at the Forest’s light show. She stared back at it. What was happening?

“Welcome to the Watch, Chamberlin,” Vance said without looking away. “This happens every night and it never gets old.”

Above the blue oval, a coil of shimmering pink unfolded and whipped through the air, smacking a gently bobbing green blob out of the sky. The green vanished amongst the dark foliage.

“That’s amazing,” Dyanne said, entranced in spite of herself. The Forest was deadly and evil, but it was also beautiful- for now. In the morning it would be back to its hulking green self and she wouldn’t be able to tell it apart from the way it was now.

Vance only nodded.

The last vestiges of the colorful sunset faded from the sky and it deepened to a black deeper than the inside of a mine, broken only by the stars above. Dyanne could see the asteroids circling the planet distantly. How strange, she thought, that Old Earth once had a moon. A moon! An interesting concept, to be sure, but awfully inconvenient for business. Those nasty tides had certainly worked a number on Old Earth’s shipping abilities.

She brought herself back to the present, to the lights. They were brighter now, and a lot of them were moving, which was unnerving. What was happening? Was it dangerous? Most importantly, why was the Forest full of lights? Why was it doing this?

Evidently she had voiced these questions out loud without noticing, because Vance replied to them. “We don’t know,” he said, leaning on the turret again. “It just does.”

Very useful. Dyanne almost made a smart remark, but decided not to. “Okay,” she settled for saying, and continued to watch the lights.

They rose somewhat above the trees, dancing in intricate patterns over the vines and branches. Yellow lights were the most prominent, and after them blue, and then green and reddish.

Dyanne inched towards the Forest. Vance put out a hand and caught her arm again.

“Now, now,” he said, smile mostly gone. “Can’t have ya gettin’ caught by the lights on your first night here. They do that to all of us, y’know- lure us in, try an’ make us leave our posts an’ join them. Try to infect us.”

Shocked, Dyanne realized she had left the turret behind and was closer to the edge of the Wall than she had thought. “Oh,” she said, the fact jolting her out of the lights-trance. “That’s… dangerous.”

“Yep.”

Dyanne backed away and stared at the Forest from a distance.

Vance was right- the Forest set off lights every night, bobs of radiance that danced enticingly above the treetops. She learned to resist their allure- she became adept at what she did. The Watchmen stopped babying her after a week and a half, and she walked her patrol routes alone and stood at her post by herself.

It was when she was alone that she saw the being.

The lights bobbed up from their trees as they always had, twirling in intricate formations and trailing particles of shimmering color after them. Through the branches she saw the oblong blue things crawling along the ground-

Wait. There was something… a disturbance. Something was very off. Dyanne peered down at the Forest and noted that there was a shape that shouldn’t have been there moving through the trees. It made her heart rate skyrocket- it was humanoid in shape…

It blurred, blinked, a fuzzy shadow. And then it wasn’t there. Dyanne frowned. Where had it gone? She looked about and saw it twenty feet away, still walking through the trees. It had no glow- no, that was wrong. It had no glow, but it was surrounded by faint sparks of random color that swirled around its form before blinking out.

Dyanne sidled to her left towards the flamethrower-turret. The figure amongst the trees stopped moving, and so did Dyanne.

She saw it look up. It didn’t have a face that she could see, or any features that she could discern from far away. Part of her wanted to raise her fireblaster and check through the scope to look closer at the creature, but… she didn’t feel like she should- like she could- move while it was looking at her.

And then, abruptly, it disappeared.

Everything was as normal again.

Puzzled, Dyanne looked around. Vance was standing a distance away- perhaps fifty feet or so- and hadn’t seen what she had, evidently.

“Vance,” she said, making a decision and hurrying over. “Vance.”

“Yeah?” he said, glancing over with a smile. When he saw her expression, however, sobered. “What is it? What’s going on?”

“Did you see that?” Dyanne said, reaching him and pointing over at the Forest. Vance followed her finger, puzzled.

“See what?”

“There was… something strange,” she managed lamely.

Vance raised an eyebrow. “The Forest’s full o’ strange things.”

“No! It wasn’t a light. It looked almost like a human, really. Like…” she hesitated, thinking. “Like a shadow of a human. But it was surrounded by tiny lights. It looked at me, too. I swear it did.” She looked pleadingly at him. “Something very odd is happening and it’s not normal.”

She half expected Vance to ridicule her, but to her surprise he simply leaned on the flamethrower turret and pondered this for a moment. Finally he stood up and crossed his arms. “I think I know what you’re talkin’ about,” he said, nodding to himself. “I’ve seen what you’re describin’. It’s like a person, only there’s somethin’ off about them… and they just flicker from one place to the next, right?”

“Right.” Dyanne had left out the translocating bit, frightened of sounding too insane- or worse, infected.

Vance nodded. “Nobody knows for sure, but we think those are what’s left of the Infected people who get caught and end up out in the Forest. The ones we can’t save.” He glanced out at the dizzying starscape that hung amongst the trees. “You know how the infection works. Some people kill, other people try and tear down the City’s walls and let the Forest in- and some get captured by it. That’s the third kind out there.” He gestured towards the jungle.

“You’re saying that was a real person I just saw?”

“That’s right.” He nodded, affirming. “We call ‘em shades.”

Dyanne turned and looked out at the trees again. A human being? But it had been a mere shadow… “How do they… move from one place to the next like that?”

“We don’t know.”

There seemed to be an awfully large number of things they didn’t know about the Forest. Dyanne frowned again. “If we don’t know, why don’t we send people out there to try and find out?”

Vance reached up and poked her forehead gently. “Stop frownin’. You’ll get wrinkles there.”

“Stop it. I know.” Dyanne brushed his hand away angrily. She already had wrinkles there, although nobody seemed to be able to see them except her and her mother. It hadn’t seemed like a big deal when she was small but now she hated them. “Why don’t we have research parties?”

“We did once,” Vance replied, glancing out at the Forest again as if searching for the shadowy figure. “But they stopped comin’ back, so we stopped sendin’ them.”

“And by that you mean-“

“They never returned.” He glared out at the trees. “Gone, every trace of ‘em. None of their gear even survived. The Forest swallowed ‘em up.”

Dyanne shuddered. It was a horrible fate- to be swallowed alive by the roots and vines and creepers of the dank, dense jungle and buried deep within its sod and dirt and decaying plant matter. She backed away from the edge.

Vance patted her shoulder. “Ah, don’t worry,” he told her kindly. “The Forest can’t get you up here. If it ever tries, well, ya got the whole Watch on your side.” He smiled again.

“Thanks,” Dyanne said, but somehow she didn’t feel very reassured.

 

 

Some people were made for the Watch- they relished lighting the encroaching tendrils of Forest vines on fire, took pleasure in torching saplings and grasses and watching the green stalks wither and curl under the heat of the flamethrower turrets and their fire guns.

But some people were not. They couldn’t handle it- something about being near the constantly moving, quietly murmuring bulk of the Forest that forced them off the Walls and into the safety of the concrete and metal of the City’s interior.

Dyanne began to feel like she was somewhere between the two. Within weeks it felt like the Forest was getting to her- she was twitchy and nervous, feeling like something was looking over her shoulder at all times, and she began to spend time simply staring out at the dark trees, searching for something.

She would have thought she was going crazy if it hadn’t been for Vance- he seemed to have the same problem. He too was fascinated by the Forest. “It’s almost like it’s callin’ to me,” he told her once, glaring at the Forest from afar. In the broad daylight, she could see the trees moving ever so slightly- and not from the wind. “Tryin’ to get me to leave my post and go in.”

As she thought about this encounter, leaning on the wall next to one of the turrets, Dyanne had a frightening thought: what if the Forest was infecting them? She knew that normally someone could only be infected if they accidentally inhaled the tiny, free-floating spores that the Forest almost constantly produced, but those were heavy and clustered near the ground. Only a storm could bring them over the City’s walls.

But if there was wind, too weak to lift the spores into the City but just strong enough to deposit them on the top of the third Wall…

She picked up a piece of dried mud and crumbled it to dust in her fingers, then dropped it over the wall. It blew back up into her face and she stumbled backwards, frightened.

Vance noticed this. He sidled over. “What’s goin’ on?”

“The Forest’s spores,” she whispered, biting her lip. “They’re up here.”

An interesting series of expressions crossed Vance’s face. "What makes you think that?" he asked carefully after a moment.

Dyanne repeated her experiment with the dust. "The wind's blowing spores here," she hissed. "If it can blow dust up here, it can blow spores up here for sure.

Vance folded his arms and stared over the Wall. Finally he said, “That explains some things, at least.”

“What things?”

“Why it’s drawin’ us,” he said, gesturing towards the Forest. “It’s callin’ to me and I know it’s reachin’ f’r you, too.”

Dyanne looked over the Wall. “So we’re… we’re Infected?”

Vance shook his head. “Not yet. Not really…” he trailed off, unsure of how to support his statements. “If we were all the way infected we’d be shoutin’ our heads off about how humans are evil and tryina tear down the walls. Nah, we’re fine for now.”

For now. Dyanne considered wearing a mask, then remembered that the spores could permeate through almost any fabric except the finest-weft cloth, and that was nearly impossible to breathe through. So there wasn’t any mask that would actually keep the spores out. “We can save ourselves if we leave the Watch,” she said quietly.

“No,” Vance said instantly. “Screw that! I’m not lettin’ the Forest scare me off the Walls.”

This seemed highly unintelligent to Dyanne, but she chose not to argue.

She should have.

Two nights later, the shade came again. But this time, it walked out into the burnt zone between the Forest and the Walls.

Dyanne went for the turret, but never got there. The shade looked up at her and she froze, unable to move except to look around. Vance was also looking at it- he was frozen too.

“Shoot it,” Dyanne called to him.

“I can’t,” he shouted back.

The shade watched them both for a second, still walking slowly forwards, and then vanished. Dyanne whirled around to try and find it and discovered it three feet from her on the stone walkway. Blue sparks danced around its feet. It advanced towards Dyanne slowly, not really touching the rocks beneath it, floating above like some divine being.

Vance grabbed his turret and hauled it around to point at the shade. “Dyanne, move!”

She couldn’t. She seemed rooted to the stones, staring at the inky menace as it glided to her and whirled around her side, then whispered something in her ear. Pinpricks of light, in all colors, whipped around her. Some stung her as the shade murmured its message to her. She felt it pass a hand over her mouth and nose and couldn’t help but inhale and it was the scent of damp grass and electricity and a cloying sweetness like decaying things. She swayed for a moment before collapsing to the ground.

A spurt of fire arced through the air over her, but the shade sparked blue and red and vanished before the flames splashed onto it. It reappeared once the fire had puddled on the stones behind Dyanne, and Vance let go of the flamethrower and charged forwards, unsheathing a sword that abruptly became engulfed in flames.

He didn’t stand a chance. He had nearly reached Dyanne when the shade whirled around him, clapped one hand over his mouth, and held him for a moment, whispering in his ear. He froze, then went limp and collapsed to the stones.

Shouting. Dyanne’s vision was blurry, but she heard shouting and saw figures moving towards them. Other Watchmen, probably. The shade turned slightly, seeming to look around, then looked at her and held one wavering hand up to its mouth.

Shhhhhh.

And then it blinked out of existence with a soft fwump. Dyanne remained stunned on the ground until hands grabbed her and pulled her roughly up.

“Are you alright?” said someone. They seemed very loud and very close.

“Hunh-“ Dyanne managed, and shook her head to clear it. “Ah. Hm. Yes, I think so.” She glanced around and saw a man leaning Vance against the wall, snapping his fingers in front of Vance’s face. “Is he alright?”

“Probably,” the Watchman said. The one holding Dyanne snapped his fingers next to her ear and she flinched. He repeated the process with her other ear, then bopped her on the nose.

“Stop it,” she said, batting his hand away.

“You’re fine,” he said, looking relieved. He helped her stand. “We were afraid the shade’d done something to you.”

“So it’s not just me,” she murmured. “You all saw the shade?”

He nodded. “Vicious monster. Can’t believe you’re alright. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you are,” he added hurriedly. “But I’ve never heard of the shade getting someone and not hurting them.”

Dyanne glanced at his name tag. He was Watchman Engle, apparently. She smiled inwardly. “It didn’t hurt me. But it did… I think it tried to speak to me. It whispered in my ear.” She touched her ear, where she knew some of the sparks had stung her. It felt hot and she frowned. “Is there a burn here?”

Watchman Engle looked at it. “No,” he said. “It’s a little red, but that’s it.”

“Huh.” She shook her head. “Must just be me, then.”

“Dyanne, you alright?” shouted Vance hoarsely from his spot against the stones.

Dyanne diverted her attention to him. “Yes, I’m fine. Are you?”

“I think so.” He pushed himself up, frowning. “What’d it do to you?”

“Nothing. It spoke to me but I couldn’t tell the words.”

“That’s odd… it did much the same thing t’me,” he muttered. “Couldn't hear a thing. What’s a shade got to talk about anyway?”

Dyanne only shrugged.

Once their fellow Watchmen decided that they were unharmed, they left them to their posts. Engle seemed reluctant to leave until Dyanne hit him gently on the arm, but he did go.

She and Vance had a conversation.

“I did not hear what it said,” Dyanne told him. “Did you?”

Vance was silent for a moment. “Yes,” he said eventually. “I did.”

Astonished, Dyanne turned her entire body to stare at him. “You- but… you lied!”

“It… didn’t want me to tell ‘em,” Vance muttered.

“The shade?”

“Yeah.”

“…you’re listening to a shade?”

“Y- no- listen,” Vance tried. “I know it sounds like I’m goin’ mad, but you’ve gotta listen to me. The shade…” he shook his head, looking out towards the Forest. “It said life outside the City is better. It said the Forest ain’t evil.”

Dyanne rejected this idea vehemently. “That’s not true,” she snapped. “The Infected say things like that. The Forest tries to kill us-“

“Then why didn’t the shade?”

She had no argument there.

From the Forest, there came flickers of light- the sun was going down and the light show would begin soon. The air hummed again, but it sounded almost like music now.

Dyanne cocked her head to the side. “Do you hear that?”

To her surprise, Vance nodded. “Yeah,” he answered. “Singin’. Music.”

They stared at the Forest.

As always, the lights rose above the trees. But this time, they didn’t stop there- glittering pillars of light swirled up into the night sky, like reverse waterfalls of gemstones, seeming to float effortlessly through the air. They whirled around like schools of fish, all going one way, then all turning and going another. She had absolutely no idea what they were.

“Whoa,” she said, awed.

Vance was staring, craning his neck up to look at the pillars of swirling lights. “That’s never happened before,” he said softly.

Dyanne chanced a look around. All the other Watchmen were still staring at the Forest’s main body. Were they somehow missing these light pillars? Why didn’t they look at them?

“Hey,” she called, to the next Watchman over. He glanced over and raised a curious eyebrow. Dyanne gestured up, at one of the whirling schools of light-dots. They were yellow. “Look at that.”

The Watchman looked, but not at the pillar. Just up into the sky in general. “Yes, nice stars,” he said, not really caring. Dyanne stepped back as he turned his attention back to the Forest.

“Vance,” she whispered, tugging on the end of his sleeve. “I don’t… I don’t think they can see them.”

“The new lights?”

“Yes.”

Below, the trees themselves began to light up. The leaves let off a faint green glow, and the trunks were lined with streaks of color that twisted to fit their gnarled forms.

Dyanne was seized by a sudden, unexpected musing. What would the Forest look like… from within?

No… no!

She stumbled back from the wall, mouth hanging slightly ajar. Vance noticed and turned to look at her, frowning. “What is it?”

“We’re Infected,” she whispered. “That’s why we can see it. The shade infected us.”

Vance paused, looking out to the Forest.

It truly was beautiful, horrifyingly so. Shimmering coils of color whirled and whipped through the darkness, a thousand and one hues of glow seeping through the darkness, edges fuzzy and soft. It didn’t look evil. It looked like… like someplace she would want to be. She knew without a doubt that if it could capture her, it would.

But it was calling to her, and to Vance, and she knew it. The shade had told Vance that it was better to be outside the City than within. Perhaps it was true. They had no way of knowing. If they could look… just look, closer at the Forest than from the third Wall…

They would never get the chance if they admitted they were Infected. They would be imprisoned instantly, trapped within the cement dungeons of the Iron City’s jail.

“Quiet,” Dyanne murmured. “We have to stay quiet about it.”

“…not tell anyone?” Vance looked surprised and worried both.

Dyanne nodded. “There’s no other way to see if the Forest is murderous or not,” she said. “We have to make sure nobody knows we’re Infected.”

Vance hesitated but a second before nodding. “Alright,” he agreed. “I’ll keep my gob shut about it all.”

She nodded to him in thanks; he ignored it and stared at the mesmerizing lights.

 

Dyanne’s shift on the Wall was in the afternoon and evening, only occasionally carrying over to the morning. She usually slept at night; in her spare mornings, she was allowed free reign to go into the Iron City and do what she pleased, within reason. If this meant eating a leisurely breakfast, so be it. If it meant wandering around, so be it.

She strolled down the main street, not far from the elevator that would take her to her Wall-home, looking at the people who hurried over the sidewalks towards their destinations. Where were they going? What were they going to do? She had no idea.

A slim woman wearing high heels walked past. Dyanne was distracted by her for a moment, but something caught her attention when she turned her head.

There, between two slabs of sidewalk cement, was a plant.

It was growing out from between the pieces, and Dyanne could see a tiny crack where the flower had forced its way through. The stalk was only a foot and a half high, and it barely reached Dyanne’s knee. The leaves were long and slender and dark, dark green, and they glistened slightly. It had one flower- a star with five wide, rounded petals, each shading from vibrant lavender on the edges to a lighter, pale lilac and finally to white in the center. It was quite beautiful.

Dyanne was wary of it. Plants were not allowed in the City. Ever. Aside from the food plants kept in the safe greenhouses, you could not have flowers, or trees, or vines. And why would you want them? The spores from the Forest- if one spore, just one spore, touched your plant, it would mutate into one of the Forest’s plants. And then you would have to fear it, for it would produce spores of its own, and the people around it would all be Infected and mad. The City Watch would have to come and burn it to nothing.

She made a cautious circle around the flower, then closed in on it. It seemed harmless.

Carefully, slowly, Dyanne reached out and touched it.

Her hand passed right through it as if it wasn’t real. She squeaked and leaped back, shaking her head, and when she looked at it again, it was gone. People stared at her strangely, and she hunched her shoulders and hurried onwards. She had imagined it. Imagined a purple flower growing in the sidewalk in the Iron City. Dyanne was going mad.

Or perhaps not. She fervently hoped that it was a one-time incident.

It was not.

That night it rained. Dyanne was miserable- she spent the entire time crouched next to her turret with her cloak pulled over her, staring at the water running over the stones of the Wall and listening to the Forest singing to her. Even in the rain, its lights flickered and danced about.

As the sun rose, Dyanne took her cloak off and spread it on the rocks to dry. When light touched the stones, they warmed them- and her cloak- and the water began to steam up into the sky. The same thing was happening to the ground below. Even in the burnt zone between the Walls and the Forest, the ground was soaked and now that the sun was rising, the water was steaming up into the cold air and condensing as a low fog. The Iron City was free of the fog, of course, as it was all stone- but the ground outside was not.

The fog came all the way up to the base of the Walls. It made Dyanne nervous- things could creep in under the cover of fog…

Wait. What was that?

Holding onto the stones for safety, Dyanne leaned over the side of the Wall and peered down into the fog.

She got a face full of flowers. Gasping, Dyanne wrenched herself back over the edge and stumbled to the ground, panting. Seconds later she was up again, leaning back over the edge to see if what she thought she had seen was real.

A huge vine, dark green in color, was had somehow climbed up the side of the Wall without her noticing. Beautiful pale yellow flowers unfolded near the top of the vine, forming a fragrant bouquet just below the edge of the third Wall. Groping limbs of the huge plant crawled up between the huge stones that formed the Wall; each edge of the stone was a foothold for the plant. Leaves unfurled from the stem, massive ovate things that came to a point at the tip and were an even deeper green than the vine of the plant. Tiny lines of yellow veins ran through the leaves.

Dyanne could hardly breathe. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. There was no way a vine could have grown up the side of the Wall during the night- someone would have noticed. Besides, vines didn’t grow that fast! Did they?

What if it was an attack by the Forest? Wait. Of course it was. Any advance by the Forest was an attack. The smartest thing to do would be to tell someone, and then start burning it to nothing with turrets, flame guns, and fire swords.

A distance away, Vance stood, staring out at the fog. He seemed to have not noticed Dyanne’s panic.

“Vance,” she called, quietly.

He turned, saw her, and hurried over, offering his hand. “What’s this on about?” he said, frowning worriedly. Dyanne stood, accepting the support, and showed him to the vine.

Vance frowned. “This…” he paused, then reached down and touched the flowers.

The vine rippled out of existence.

Shocked, Dyanne stared dumbly at the place where it had been. What…. what?! Just like the flower, the vine hadn’t been real at all. But the flowers had produced a smell, and the vine’s leaves had glistened in the sun- and- and-

Dyanne fumbled for an explanation and couldn’t find one.

“Well, that was peculiar,” Vance said in an odd tone of voice. He stared at his hands.

Out in the fog, the Forest pulsed with energy. Wispy tendrils of the fog seemed to coil up amongst the trees like tentacles, or fingers with far too many joints. Whispers echoed through the air, and currents of warm dampness swirled around Dyanne’s ears. She could hear the pulsing- a slow, steady thumping, like a strange heartbeat. It made Dyanne nervous… but also, strangely excited. Anxious, perhaps? It was as if she were waiting for something.

She took her leave of the Wall. Vance followed her, confused, wanting to ask about the vine.

“What was that?” he asked her finally, shadowing her as she strode briskly along the street.

“An unreal vine,” she said quietly. “It happened to me before. I found a flower in the sidewalk- pushing through a tiny crack- and when I touched it, it vanished.”

“Is this gonna keep happenin’?”

“I don’t know.” The air shifted; something changed. Annoyed, Dyanne looked up, and stopped in her tracks.

One of the large, concrete-and-rebar buildings had been partially destroyed, it seemed. The walls had crumbled near the top, and the roof was all but gone- instead, a massive tree had sprouted from the wreckage and spread innumerable mighty limbs towards the heavens.

“Please tell me you can see that,” Vance murmured.

“Yes, I… I can,” Dyanne breathed. The tree’s leaves rustled in the wind, the branches swaying ever so slightly. The trunk was bigger than one of the shops on the road Dyanne was standing on; its roots were equally titanic, driving down into the building, sometimes spilling out the sides and burrowing back through the manmade stone further down. The office complex was no match for this beautiful, awful tree, Dyanne thought, swallowing.

“It’s not real,” Vance growled. “It can’t be.”

“It’s not.” Reluctantly Dyanne lowered her eyes and stared at the sidewalk. She closed them and counted for a few seconds, then looked up. The gargantuan plant was gone. The building was as it had been- geometrical and square and gray, cement unmarred by any hint of greenery.

Shakily, Dyanne kept walking. Something tickled her ear, and she tossed her head, but there was nothing there. Were the Forest’s illusions affecting her even here?

In the next few hours, Dyanne and Vance encountered a bush, several flowers, another vine, and a small stand of trees. Each time they dispelled the illusion with a touch or with words, it came back stronger, and the Forest’s song became louder in their minds. They could not be rid of it. They could not outrun it. The last few illusions were felt; in the stand of trees, Dyanne could smell the rotting leaf litter, and when she tried to pass her hand through a tree it wouldn’t go. The tree felt real to her, its smooth bark marred with myriad tiny scratches sealed over into scars. She stopped, but the illusion faded away as all those before it had. She knew that there would be more. The Forest was not going to give up.

The humming, pulsing music swelled in her mind. She could not ignore it. The Forest was calling to her- calling, it wanted her, come away, come away from that City come away from their fear come, come to me, come to me, come to us…

It became painfully clear to Dyanne that either they had to go to the Forest, or it would come in and fetch them out.

They stood on the Wall in the twilight, watching the lights swarm up out of the trees, freed from their daytime prisons by the oncoming night. Shadows blurred into one another amongst the twisted trunks; Dyanne could not be sure if she was seeing just darkness, or shades moving about.

The Forest sang to them. It wanted them. They were so close. All they had to do was leave the wall, walk over the burnt zone, and vanish forever into the trees.

Dyanne clenched her teeth and tried to ignore it. She claimed to be ill- Vance followed her example, after a time- and retired, heading into the City to escape the Forest’s pleas.

What an awful idea.

She slept and woke late in the morning, and did not go to the Wall but went inwards. The concrete and cement and metal made her feel safe; in here, the Forest could not take her. It was such a feeling of complete triumph that Dyanne turned her face to the sun and let it warm her skin.

It felt, suddenly, as if she had passed through a curtain of cold mist. Dyanne’s eyes shot open and she whirled around, gasping with the suddenness of it, and saw before her an inky outline of a shape, filled in with only shadow, surrounded by flecks of brightness.

This close, she could see the shade’s face. The features were almost gone; all she could really detect was its eyes. They were gray ovals, indistinct whirls of lightness in the shade’s black face. It stood there silently. Dyanne realized she had walked straight through it.

She looked around. Nobody seemed to see the shade except her.

It advanced, taking slow steps, and Dyanne scrambled backwards and ran. But it blurred out of existence, then back in, and appeared before her in a whorl of shadow.

Dyanne couldn’t help it- she shrieked with surprise, turned, and pelted down the road. The shape followed her, translocating, but this time it was always behind her, as if chasing her… but she knew if it wanted to catch her, it could just move itself instantly before her and stop her in her tracks. What was it doing? What game was it playing…?

The pulsing hum grew louder. Dyanne realized she was running towards the Walls.

Then she knew. The shade was chasing her towards the Forest.

Her mind was torn. She could go to the Forest, disappear into its depths, marvel at its alien beauty before it killed her, which it undoubtedly would do. Or she could go to the City Watch and declare herself Infected, and they would imprison her forever in stone and iron.

Her choice was made for her when she saw two uniformed officials break from their patrol walk and hurry towards her. “Ma’am,” one of them called. “Ma’am, stop running.”

“I can’t,” Dyanne panted, as she ran past them. “It’ll catch me.”

That was the exact wrong thing to say. The officials backed up. “Infected,” one of them said quietly, and then the other shouted, “Clear the street! Alert the Watch!”

Crap. Dyanne shook her head and continued to run for the Walls. She had no choice now- if they caught her, they would punish her for not reporting her Infection earlier. No, she had one place to go now. The Forest.

She skidded to a stop outside an alleyway, turned, and dashed in. The uniformed officers were behind her. Dyanne had no time to stop or think about anything but running. She kept going, racing onwards until she burst out on the other side into a busy street.

Coincidentally, someone bowled her over an instant later, and they both crashed to the ground.

“Watch it!” shouted a familiar voice, and Dyanne looked in shock at Vance, who was panting and sweating.

“…Vance?!”

“It’s coming,” he gasped. “I-“ he looked over her shoulder, and his face drained of blood. “Run!”

Dyanne risked a look; the shade was there, just behind her. She scrambled up, helped Vance to the same, and they both ran.

“I… alerted…. city guard…” Dyanne panted, as they ran.

Vance only shook his head, his breath saved for flight. Dyanne risked another look back and found that, rather than a shade chasing them, there were now two shades following them effortlessly, blurring from one spot to the next.

Fortunately, they reached the elevator up to the Walls before anyone could revoke their passage cards and render them useless. They dashed in and waited nervously while the elevator screeched all the way up the wall, then hurried out onto the busy First Wall. It was wider than the other two, and looking over the edge of it made Dyanne dizzy, as it was also half again as tall as the Third Wall.

“Cable box,” she pointed out quietly. Vance looked behind them for the shades, but they seemed to have abandoned the Watchmen in the elevator. Dyanne wasn’t sure what was happening. Perhaps heights were a problem?

No, they couldn’t be. One of the shades had gotten on top of the Third Wall to do… whatever it had done to them, after all. She couldn’t imagine what game they were playing.

The cable box was a small sort of trolley that ferried people from one Wall to the next. It consisted of two very strong cables with the trolleys hanging on them, and they would go down one cable and come up the next. There was a complex pulley aspect to the system, but Dyanne didn’t understand or care about it.

She pulled Vance aside once they had boarded. They were the only ones there.

“Vance, we have to leave,” she said quietly.

“What?”

“The City. The Forest.” she waved her hands. “We can’t stay in the City now. We’ll be punished, and I don’t think the shades are going to leave us alone until we go where they want us to.” The shades would follow and frighten them, perhaps hurt them, if they didn’t obey. “We have to go to the Forest.”

“But…” Vance seemed to be having a massive inner struggle. “The Forest… it’ll kill us an’…”

“We have no other choice. The guard and the Watch are on alert now. If we can get…” Dyanne trailed off, struck by an idea suddenly. She grabbed Vance’s shoulders excitedly. “Vance! If we can get our packs from the Watch supply area, we can just fly out! It’ll be easy!”

He looked at her doubtfully. “But the Watchmen,” he said finally. “They’ll be searchin’ for us now.”

“The last place they’d expect us to go is straight to the main Watch building,” said Dyanne, with far more confidence than she possessed. “We’ll manage it.”

Vance said nothing.

The cable box came to a halt on the Second Wall. This one was much quieter than the First Wall, but still busy. Only the Third Wall held only Watchmen. Dyanne and Vance headed for the main Watch building. Those that passed them, it seemed, hadn’t been alerted to their Infected status yet, and greeted them with cursory nods and smiles. Dyanne was shaking with nervousness, and Vance was still glistening with sweat from his run and his fear. The Watchmen seemed not to notice that.

Inside the building was mostly dark. Dyanne found her pack and pulled it on, then put her cloak over it, trying to look normal. Her Watch didn’t start for hours. Someone was sure to question her…

But no one did, and she and Vance made it to the cable box again fully clothed in their Watch gear. Dyanne agonized over the slowness of the box as it casually made its way down to the cable. She looked back-

Both of the shades stood on the edge of the Second Wall, watching the cable box slide away from them. Dyanne’s heart stopped for a second, watching, and she decided that telling Vance would be pointless. She turned away.

The cable box, finally, jerked to a halt on its cable. Dyanne waited as the door hissed open, then sprang out, pulling Vance after her. He stumbled a bit because- suddenly- the box started moving.

“Hey! Hey!” Someone was shouting from the Second Wall over to the Third. Another cable box was on its way, very quickly, filled with irate-looking guardsmen.

Vance swiveled to look at Dyanne; he seemed terrified.

Dyanne whirled her cloak off her back, revealing her pack. “Let’s go,” she growled, and went to the far edge of the Wall. The precipice beckoned; the Forest beyond yearned for her, and finally she would come to it.

Vance pulled his cloak off and draped it over his arm, then followed her. Together they stepped up onto the outer edge of the wall, looked at each other, and nodded.

The packs would activate automatically once it detected the fall. So they had to jump first.

Dyanne closed her eyes and breathed once, twice… before she lost her nerve, she deliberately overbalanced forwards.

It was possibly the worst feeling she had ever experienced in her life.

The Wall curved- any moment she could hit it and bounce off- and the air tore at her clothing and tried to take her cloak but she clutched it to her chest like a blanket-

Vance, behind and above her, screamed as he fell. Dyanne was amazed that she didn’t do the same. Shouts echoed from above, on the Wall.

Something clicked, and she felt the pack move- and abruptly the jets fired, throwing her body to the side as they slowed her fall dramatically. Vance went shooting past her. The wings on her pack unfolded to their full eighteen-foot aluminum and carbon fiber length, and flapped once. That was odd. They weren’t supposed to flap.

Vance’s pack activated, she could hear it from here. Dyanne descended, hitting a button on the strap to lower the jets, and they allowed her to descend almost gracefully towards the ground. She stopped and hovered while Vance got control of himself.

“Never again!” he shouted furiously-fearfully- at her, when he had righted himself. “Never! Again!”

Hopefully not, Dyanne thought.

Something arched past her and splattered on the ground- a stream of red liquid fire. She whirled and saw the guardsmen and the Watchmen on the wall, firing their turrets at them. It hurt her, not physically, but she could see Watchmen that she’d worked with for weeks manning the turrets and trying to shoot her out of the sky. They didn’t show any of the kindness she'd known that they possessed. 

“Go!” She shouted to Vance. He’d had more experience with flying than she had, but she was better at it, and he knew it. He fired his jets and made for the treeline.

Dyanne circled around once and began to zigzag back and forth in irregular patterns, drawing the fire from the Third Wall. Some of the splashes came dangerously close to her wings but somehow they were never hit. They also flapped, which they definitely were designed but not programmed to do, and at one point folded in completely to allow her to roll through a gout of flames too close for the wings to be out.

The second Vance had made it to the trees, Dyanne turned and fired her jets as strong as they would go. She shot forward; the Watchmen, momentarily surprised, continued to fire at where she had been. Just a few seconds- that was all Dyanne needed, and she covered the ground in the precious moments her surprise had bought.

Into the trees! Her pack’s wings folded in again, somehow understanding that otherwise they’d break, and she rolled and fired her jets to slow herself and come to a stop, landing on the forest floor. The pack knew its job was done. It folded its wings up and turned itself off.

Well, that would be useless from now on. It needed an altitude change to activate; now that she was at the ground level, unless she jumped out of a very tall tree it would never activate again. She’d keep it anyway. Deciding this, Dyanne swirled her cloak back over herself and headed off to find Vance.

It turned out that he had crashed into some bushes a distance away. Dyanne pulled away twigs and leaves and found him staring sourly at her.

“This isn’t my fault,” she said.

“Didn’t say it was,” he growled back.

“You implied it with that look.”

“Nah.”

Once he was up, clear of brush fragments and cloaked again, he and Dyanne faced the Forest.

Around them, the hum seemed to have faded. It was almost silent, and Dyanne remembered why she was so scared of the Forest. It could kill them right now, probably, and they would never have a chance to fight.

But the shades…

The shades! Were they here?

Dyanne turned around, searching, but didn’t see anything moving amongst the dark leaves. Not that she’d be able to detect two shadowy shapes in an equally shadowy forest…

“Ah… where are we goin’?” Vance suddenly said.

Taken by surprise, Dyanne stopped. “I haven’t the faintest idea,” she said after a moment. “I really don’t. I assumed we’d… find… something, but we haven’t.”

“Well, it ain’t bad news,” her companion tried, sighing heavily. “I’ll just walk on in, then, I s’pose. Th’ Forest could hardly hurt me more now, huh?”

Dyanne did not agree with that assumption. It still was rife with dangers and strange creatures, any of which could kill them.

But… something told her that they’d be alright.  The shade wouldn’t have Infected them if they were meant to die in this dank wilderness.

Dyanne started resolutely forward. Vance followed her.

“Hey,” she said, thinking about her pack’s odd behavior. “Did your pack do anything weird?”

“Weird how?” Vance picked through the undergrowth, trying not to trip on a ground blanketed by twisting tree roots.

“Mine flapped,” Dyanne said. “And folded. It did things that the packs aren’t supposed to do.”

“Uh, no. Mine ain’t built to do that.”

“That’s strange.” Dyanne touched the strap of her wingpack gently, frowning. “It should not have done that. What was the stimulus it was reacting to?”

“What?”

“Nothing.” She shook her head. The pack had to have had some sort of outside influence forcing it into the actions it had performed during her master getaway. But what could it have possibly been? There weren’t controls for that sort of thing on the wingpack… “Vance.”

“Yeah?”

“Has anybody ever tried to telepathically control a wingpack?”

“What?!”

“Did anyone ever attempt to make a mentally-controlled one? Wasn’t there an experiment concerning that?” She was sure she’d read something on the subject once. But the experiment had been discontinued, because the person developing the wingpack technology had become Infected and was taken away to the prisons, where they died.

Maybe that was it. Maybe it was reacting to her being Infected… It was a strange idea, and rather far-fetched, but it was the only thing she could think of that actually made sense.

She glanced up. They had an hour or more before the sun set and the Forest’s lights came to life, although she couldn’t be sure because the trees around her were blocking almost all of the light from reaching the Forest floor.

The trees. She hadn’t really looked at them until now.

Some of them were akin to the monstrosity that had destroyed the office building in one of the Forest’s illusions. Massive gnarled plants spiraled up into a shadowy canopy shot through with beams of golden sunlight. Smaller trees surrounded them as well, towering columns of chestnut-brown wood and gray bark. A faint blueish mist hung in a soft cloud over the ground, obscuring the massive ridges of roots that dug furrows in the soft mossy ground.

The sweet smell of decaying leaves rose from the mist and tickled Dyanne’s nose; it mixed with the scent of moisture hanging in the still air and the perfume of flowers nestled in the crooks between massive branches. Vines drooped from the shadowed limbs overhead, thick green ones and brown ones and yellow ones that sprouted weak leaves or tiny blue flowers.

Vance and Dyanne continued inwards. The silence of the Forest, not oppressive but not welcoming, provided an air of stillness that they couldn’t bring themselves to break with words. So they walked on, barely adding to the noise, further away from the Iron City.

She didn’t notice it at first- the light fading from above, the shadows growing and lapping at her feet beneath the mist. But Vance stumbled and fell, and when she stopped to help him up it occurred to her that dusk was falling.

“It’s twilight,” she whispered, looking up. “so…”

As if on cue, a single spot of yellow appeared in the dark, twenty feet away. It bobbed gently up and down.

The mist slowly became suffused with many colors, red and yellow and blue and green and orange and purple and Dyanne could suddenly see faint stripes and wavering lines of color running up the trunks of the trees and glowing through the bark. The leaves overhead slowly began to light up, very gradually. The flowers, however, blinked on one after another, like lights flickering on faulty wire.

Suddenly she remembered the pillars of light, the clouds of tiny points like stars whirling above the Forest’s canopy. Now she would be able to see what they were!

Before them, the mist was suddenly churned by tiny currents of air, and points of greenish-blue light rose out of it, forming into a cloud. Dyanne hurried forwards, heedless of Vance’s sudden cry of warning, and ran right up to the forming cloud.

“Insects,” she said, amazed. “It’s insects!”

Tiny six-legged creatures, like fireflies but faster and stronger, were whirling about each other in a hurricane of whispering wings and trails of turquoise light. The cloud collected more insects, and began to rise up through the trees towards the velvet sky.

Dyanne watched them ascend. “Wow,” she said quietly.

Vance caught up to her and craned his head back to look at them. “Huh,” he said. “Insects, really? A load of bugs made those… things?”

Eloquent, Dyanne thought. But she got his point. “Yes,” she responded. “That’s-“

Suddenly, something caught her ear and she forgot whatever she had been about to say. Faint sounds drifted through the trees, strains of lilting music.

“Do you hear that?”

It wasn’t the Forest’s subtle, intense humming, nor was it anything like music from the City. It was altogether alien, something utterly new to Dyanne’s ears. The instruments- she couldn’t tell what they were, because the sounds were all wrong to be anything she knew. And was that… singing? Human voices singing?

“…music?” Vance said, raising one eyebrow. He frowned into the distance. “That what you’re hearin’?”

“Yes.” Dyanne tugged on his wrist. “Come on, let’s find it.”

The further they went into the Forest, the more beautiful it became. It was so breathtakingly gorgeous that Dyanne forgot entirely to be afraid of it. She marveled at it- she and Vance were so small, two tiny shadowy pinpricks of people lost within the forest of lights.

After a time, they came to a glowing archway. The trees on either side were curved and bowed to form a pointed tunnel, and more branches and trees beyond that continued the structure. Lights glowed over it- magenta, apricot, cerulean, copper, ochre, even violet and gray.

“We should go in,” Dyanne said.

“You think?” Vance stared critically at it. “I dun’ like it. It’s too…” he trailed off, unable to find the word he was searching for.

“I don’t think so,” Dyanne promptly disagreed. “But where else can we go now?”

Vance didn’t have an argument for that, so he followed her as she marched into the tunnel.

It felt odd inside. The air rushed past her in no particular direction, pushed by idle breezes and the wings of birds and bugs that flitted past. Halfway through the tunnel Dyanne spotted a patch of glowing blue mushrooms. Crawling underneath them was a dark purple centipede the size of her arm, and fluttering in circles above were several faintly glowing tan moths. Dyanne stopped to look and caught one in her hand. It sat on her fingers and twitched its feathery antennae at her, utterly unafraid.

Vance passed her, and she blew the moth into the air and followed. They kept going, and suddenly the tunnel ended and they were standing on a platform of stone and roots overlooking a wide, deep pit in the ground. It was too dark to see much besides the edge of the pit.

The music was coming from here, Dyanne could hear. And now she could also hear… laughter. Mixed with the sound of soft string instruments, and the strange shimmery noises she had originally heard, and the singing.

Something rippled out of the darkness next to her. She turned- it was a shade. Vance yelped and shoved her behind him, staring at the shade.

“Get away!” he shouted at it. “Don’t you come any closer!”

It didn’t really react, except to c**k its head to the side and stare at them. Colored sparks whirled around it, but slowly, like tiny orbiting planets.

Vance opened his mouth to say something else, but was cut off by a low, amused voice emanating from the shadows.

“You still think the shades intend to hurt you?”

From behind the shade stepped out a figure; a tall man dressed in dark clothing and a green cloak, which rustled when he moved. He was wearing chocolate-brown leather boots that blended into the darkness and gave Dyanne the momentary and uncomfortable impression that he didn’t actually have feet and was floating above the ground. His shirt was white, but he was wearing a dark vest over it, and dark trousers of some kind. In the darkness with the colored lights about it was hard to distinguish one color from the next.

Vance eyed him warily. “Who’re you?” he said. Dyanne stepped out from behind him and stared at the mystery man.

He bowed. “Aerin Hawley, at your service.” He spoke with a faint accent that Dyanne couldn’t place. She’d never heard accents before, not really, since she’d only ever spoken to people from within the Iron City.

“Dyanne Chamberlin, at yours,” she said, bowing back. Aerin seemed amused by this.

“And your protective companion?” he asked, looking to Vance. Vance was still staring fearfully at the shade, which hadn’t moved from its place.

“Vance Rennick,” Dyanne said, and elbowed him hard. He blinked and growled at her, then realized he was being introduced.

“Oh. Aye. That’s me,” he said, nodding curtly at Aerin. “The one and only.”

Aerin nodded. “You’re refugees from the Iron City,” he stated. “I’ve watched your flight all afternoon. I’m one of the Rangers from this colony.”

“Rangers? Colony?” Dyanne frowned. “What does all this mean?”

Laughing, Aerin beckoned them to follow him. “I’m like a Watchman, but instead of walking the Walls for the City, I patrol the edge of the Forest. And I belong to one of the many colonies of people who live out here. There are more of us than you would expect.” He paused, then whistled a sharp, wavering tone. Immediately, lights sprang up around them, illuminating the pit and the scene. Ripples of color spread up the sides of the pit and climbed over tree trunks, flowing upwards until they reached the leaves and strengthened the faint glow to a bright shine. Dyanne looked around, now able to observe her surroundings.

Roots curled around the edges and leaped in and out of the sides of the pit like sea serpents caught in time, in the soil and rock. Trees towered overhead, covering the pit, and vines dripped from their branches to fall with strings of glowing flowers into the hole. Bushes and flower plants grew on pathways that curled around the edges of the pit, and a few large roots bridged the gap of chasm, big enough to walk on.

Aerin led them onwards, past a massive spiky flower that produced clusters of silver buds dripping with nectar. Dyanne caught a whiff of sweetness as they walked by.

Birds with glittering wings swept across the chasm, trilling fluting notes in their wake. Nocturnal insects buzzed amongst the bushes and leaves, and tiny marsupial creatures clambered along the vines to access the massive glowing flowers spaced along them. It was breathtaking to view; everything was constantly moving, and everything was colorful and dark and light all at once.

They reached the top of the path and continued climbing, up a flat stairway made of huge flat platforms of wood. Aerin stopped at a particularly large one overhanging the pit and led them out onto it.

Below them was spread the life-lights of ten thousand creatures and the rippling interconnected strands of Forest radiance. Above, the canopy of leaves glimmered green, each one edged in bright white sparks like tiny stars.

“Welcome to the Orchid Colony,” Aerin said, gesturing out towards the sea of lights. “This is your home now.”