His second act was to lead an expedition into Lostwood.

Ten years later

Sweat dripped from Mayor Faryon dar Lamassi’s brow as he toiled, stabbing the business end of his shovel into the dirt, pressing it deep with the heel of his boot, and then prying the sod, rocks and outer layer of leaves free. Insects scuttled away. The two halves of a worm squirmed and writhed as though searching for each other.

Faryon peered into the fresh hole, hoping to spy that telltale golden glow. When all he saw was brown, packed dirt and the things that lived inside it, he grimaced, trying not to show his frustration to his men.

Not that they cared. They got paid for their troubles either way.

In the decade since his parents’ untimely deaths, he and his men had chewed up miles of the forest’s floor with their shovels, spades and picks. They’d started their search at the ancient tree that had nearly ended his life while simultaneously changing it forever. They’d hacked its roots to ribbons, but only one had contained a small vein of the golden liquid. Faryon had harvested it, and it now hung in a vial looped around him like a necklace. It was intended to be a reminder of why they labored day in and day out, but lately it had felt like a cruel mockery of his failures.

Failures that had been costly, for though he’d continued to maintain the façade of having endless resources to commit to this cause, the truth was that the coffers, as deep as they’d once been, had already run dry. When he reached the next pay day and failed to compensate his workers, mutiny and chaos would arise soon after. And then he’d be finished.

He tried not to think about that, instead recounting all that had transpired over the years. From the old tree, they’d immediately discovered a golden stain beneath the ground, all dried up. They’d followed that stain for miles upon miles, sometimes losing the trail, forcing them to branch in a dozen directions until they picked it up again. Somehow the golden trickle had traveled all that way to the tree and been drunk by the root. Somehow Faryon had dashed that root open at his exact time of need. If not, he’d be the one dead and not his parents.

But from where had it originated?

“It has to mean something,” he said through gritted teeth now, slamming his shovel back into the dirt. His hands quivered as he hit something hard—a stone. All the years of failure and frustration came boiling to the surface as he extricated his shovel before bringing it down once more, then again and again and again. Each blow hurt more than the last, the stone hard enough to sustain the impacts from the shovel’s metal tip. “Godsdammit!” he roared, tossing the shovel aside and dropping to his knees. “Where are you, godsdammit!” He dug with his hands like a dog, scraping the loose dirt and debris away to reveal the edges of a stone far larger than those that usually slowed their progress.