Year sixty-two of the Firefolk Era, winter solstice night.
The Charcoal-Pencil Forest beside the Ruin Abyss well had spread for three miles, like a Star Sea that grew and flourished on its own. It never went dark at night. The Light Vein wandered like a river among the roots, branches and leaves swayed gently, and a faint glow shimmered over the leaves, like the traces of a charcoal pencil sliding across paper.
There was no wind in the forest, yet there was sound.
Whispers drifted like fluff, like murmurs in dreams, like the soft sighs of the people of the Nine Provinces before their hearths, like the Heart Flame River flowing through children's dreams. The Night Watchers said, "The forest is breathing. The forest is speaking."
On the first night, the Night Watcher A Man carried a lamp on his patrol through the forest.
He had once been an old oil seller on West Street. Childless in his old age, he lived alone beside the well. When he saw the forest shine, he volunteered to keep watch. "My eyes aren't blind, and my legs aren't crippled. I can still walk a little."
He carried a small oil lamp, fueled with "Heart Flame Paste" refined beside the Hearthfire River. It caught fire at a touch, gave off no black smoke, and shone like moonlight.
He walked slowly along the forest path. At each tree, he crouched down and dripped lamp oil onto its roots.
As the oil sank into the soil, the Light Vein flared, like blood entering a heart.
The trunk trembled softly, and faintly glowing words appeared on the leaves—
"Northern Border Snowfield: the well surges."
"Western Desert sand well: the veins are connected."
"Southern Island fishing village: dreams have been drawn into a map."
"**The forest is sending