Deep within the Greenwake, where the trees grew old enough that their roots forgot the shape of daylight, something had begun to fail.
At first, it was subtle.
Moss thickened where it should have thinned. Fungal shelves spread in overlapping spirals instead of clean tiers, their edges wet and faintly luminous even at noon. Insects gathered in wrong numbers—too many of one kind, none of another—moving with a sluggish purpose that did not match hunger or season.
The forest did not scream.
It strained.
Sap bled dark from hairline fractures in bark that should not have split. Leaves curled inward on themselves, veins standing out like bruises beneath skin. The soil, rich and loamy by nature, began to clump into heavy, greasy masses that held moisture too long and released it too slowly, choking the fine networks of root and worm and beetle that kept the Greenwake alive.
At the center of it all, the air felt wrong.
Not poisoned—pressured.
Magic saturated the space, not as a surge or flare, but as a slow accumulation, like water seeping into stone. It did not radiate outward in waves. It pooled. Sank. Nested.
The first creatures to encounter it did not flee.
A deer stepped into the affected ground at dawn, hooves sinking slightly deeper than they should have. It paused, head lifting, ears twitching—not in alarm, but confusion. The scent of rot and bloom tangled in its senses, impossible to separate.
By midday, it was still there.
By nightfall, it was no longer a deer.
Its flesh thickened unevenly, muscle knotting in places where bone should have limited it. Antlers warped, branching inward as much as out, fusing at the tips into a crown of pale, wet growth. Its eyes clouded, then cleared again—too clear, reflecting more light than the moon gave.
It did not suffer.
It adapted.
Birds that fed on insects near the affected zone stopped flying away when approached. Their feathers clung together in slick mats, wings beating with effort rather than instinct. When one fell to the ground, it did not die. It crawled, dragging half-formed pinions behind it, beak working at the soil as if trying to drink from it.
Roots drank deeper.
Trees leaned, not toward the sun, but toward the center of the corruption, bark splitting to allow fibrous growths to emerge—tendrils that pulsed faintly, exchanging something unseen through the earth.
This was not decay.
It was instruction.
The pestilence carried magic twisted out of alignment with the world's rhythms. It did not erase nature. It overwrote it, layering new rules atop old ones without removing the originals. The result was not death, but contradiction.
Life forced to obey two truths at once.
Anything that crossed the threshold carried it with them. Spores clung to fur and skin. Microscopic filaments burrowed into tissue and root alike, rewriting growth patterns cell by cell. Predators that fed on the changed became changed themselves, faster and stronger and less discerning, aggression untethered from hunger.
Nothing immune remained immune for long.
The Greenwake resisted as it always had—through balance, through pressure, through quiet correction—but this intrusion did not answer to balance. It answered only to expansion.
Deeper still, at the heart of the corruption, the forest floor had collapsed inward, forming a shallow basin choked with growth that should not have coexisted. Vines with bark-hard skins coiled around fungal towers that bled viscous sap. Flowers bloomed without pollinators, their petals layered with eyes that did not see but registered.
Magic churned there, thick and self-sustaining.
It had no will.
No voice.
But it learned.
Each creature that entered refined it. Each failure adjusted its spread. The pestilence did not seek the Greenwake's destruction—it sought compatibility.
And somewhere far away, beyond miles of root and stone and fog, the forest began to lean—subtly, inexorably—toward a single point of tension.
Toward someone who had not yet seen it.
But whom the Greenwake already knew it would need.
_____
The elders gathered in the Upper Convergence Chamber, where sound softened and magic carried farther than words.
It was a circular room of pale stone and glass-veined marble, its floor etched with sigils older than the Lyceum's current charter. No single focus point dominated the space. That, too, was deliberate. Power here was meant to distribute, not concentrate.
Arch-Rector Halvane Korth stood at the chamber's edge, hands folded behind his back. Around the circle, senior faculty occupied their usual positions—some seated, some standing, all attentive in the quiet, disciplined way of those accustomed to authority.
The wrongness lingered.
Not sharp. Not violent. Just present.
Master Ironcall shifted her weight, boots scraping faintly. "It's still there," she said. "Whatever it is."
"No fluctuation," another elder added. "No growth curve."
"Which makes it worse," Ironcall replied. "If it were spiking, we'd have a shape to grab."
Murmurs followed. Agreement, irritation, a hint of unease carefully kept from becoming fear.
Korth let it run its course before speaking. "We have established that the phenomenon is distant, low-amplitude, and sustained. We have also established that it violates no current containment thresholds."
"That does not mean it is harmless," said Elder Varenth, fingers steepled. "Merely patient."
Before Korth could respond, a quieter voice entered the space.
"Then we should go."
Several heads turned.
Elaria Thornewin stood near the outer ring, hands clasped in front of her, posture correct but not rigid. She had not been summoned. Students rarely were. Her presence alone was a breach of custom.
Korth's gaze settled on her, unreadable. "This council is not open to—"
"I know," Elaria said quickly, then steadied herself. "But you're feeling it. All of you are."
Silence followed. Not offended silence. Consideration.
Ironcall's eyes narrowed slightly—not hostile, but assessing. "Explain."
Elaria took a breath. She did not project. She did not cast. She simply spoke.
"It isn't loud enough to force a response," she said. "That's why you're hesitating. But it's consistent. It doesn't fray, doesn't spike, doesn't decay. That means it's settled."
Varenth frowned. "Magic does not settle without structure."
"Exactly," Elaria replied. "So something else is holding it."
A ripple passed through the chamber—not alarm, but attention sharpening.
Korth studied her more closely now. "You believe this warrants a field investigation."
"Yes," Elaria said. "Soon."
"On what grounds?" asked another elder. "There is no threat vector."
"There doesn't need to be," she replied. "Not yet. Waiting for justification is how we miss the beginning."
Ironcall crossed her arms. "You're suggesting we deploy resources based on a feeling."
Elaria nodded once. "Based on alignment."
That earned a few raised brows.
She pressed on before doubt could harden. "If this were a surge, you'd send battlemagi. If it were decay, you'd send healers. This is neither. It's… wrong in a way that doesn't ask permission."
Korth interjected calmly. "You are describing conjecture."
"Yes," Elaria agreed. "But it's informed conjecture."
She gestured subtly, not toward any sigil or chart, but outward—toward the world beyond stone and doctrine. "When something like this waits, it isn't deciding if it will matter. It's deciding when."
The chamber remained quiet.
Korth broke the silence. "And you believe early observation carries less risk than delayed response."
"Yes," Elaria said. "If nothing is found, we lose time and ink. If something is found late—" She stopped, choosing her words carefully. "—we lose options."
Ironcall's mouth twitched. Approval, perhaps. Or recognition.
Varenth exhaled slowly. "She is not wrong about one thing," he said. "Low-magnitude anomalies that persist tend to… recontextualize."
Korth considered that. He did not look at Elaria again immediately. Instead, he turned his attention inward, brushing his awareness across the Lyceum's lattice once more.
The wrongness answered—not louder, not clearer.
Just there.
"Very well," Korth said at last. "A limited reconnaissance. Small. Quiet."
Elaria's shoulders eased, just a fraction.
"Not a student team," Ironcall said quickly.
"No," Korth agreed. "Nor a battlemage detachment. Observation only."
He finally looked at Elaria again. "You will not be part of it."
She accepted that without protest. "I understand."
"But," Korth continued, "you will prepare the briefing. Your… perspective appears relevant."
A subtle shift ran through the chamber. Not agreement. Not dissent.
Acceptance.
The elders began discussing logistics—routes, cover identities, containment protocols. The Lyceum returned to what it did best: planning, structuring, reducing uncertainty into manageable forms.
Elaria remained where she was, quiet once more.
Somewhere far away, deep in the Greenwake, something continued to grow—unaware of councils or doctrine, but no longer entirely unobserved.
And for the first time since it began, the distance between wrongness and response began to close.