Ark stopped on the woodway by the shrine, wondering if his coin still nestled in the watery depths. Then he was inside, enveloped by incense and musty shadows.

“I’d recognize those footsteps anywhere!” The Warden was praying. “Could it really be you?” Only two days before, she had conducted Ark’s funeral, reading from the Wood-Book: But a Dendran dieth, and is laid low: Yea, the Dendran giveth up the ghost, and where is he? Her words had not taken one ounce of grief from the Malikums nor stemmed their rivers of tears. There had been no body, only a shroud filled with goat meat: a sacrifice for the ravens. The Holly Woodsmen had sneered at her request to lead the ceremony. Such archaic rituals were falling out of favor.

Ark walked across the kirk floor and knelt by the Warden, allowing her gnarled fingers to read the map of his face. “You have cheated death once more!”

He thought of Petronio’s confident attack, of ravens and boars. “I was lucky. The wood had work for me. But now I’m scared.”

Though she was only an old, blind woman, the Warden could still give comfort. “The branch has led you this far. It will not drop you now. I promise. The good Goddess looks after Her own.”

Ark nodded, wondering if he should tell her about Corwenna and who he really was. But now was not the time. “I have to fight for Arborium. Dendrans and others might die.”

“And you want my advice?”

“I don’t know what I want. At least tell my parents I’m alive, for now, and not to worry about Shiv.” He got up to leave.

“Ark. Stop. I feel the anger in you and the evil that is abroad. If you let this hatred lead to murder, you will be no better than those who seek to defeat you.”

Ark pulled away. “What? Let them maim and mutilate, while we turn the other cheek?” He felt the phial around his neck like a cold chill, urging him to destroy each and every traitor.

“I didn’t say that. The taking of life is only for Diana.”

Ark winced as he heard the word. Maybe it was all right to use his grandmother’s name. She was the one who created this place from her dreams. It truly was a wood of wonders.

The Warden continued. “But as for fighting, the holly script is clearly on the side of the just!”

It was an answer, of sorts. Corwenna would happily wipe out every enemy with a smile on her face. But Ark was brought up as a Dendran. Years of kirk could not be so easily dismissed. “You might be right,” he said, his heart unaccountably lighter, ideas beginning to whir like sycamore seeds.

“Be guided by your be-leaf!” whispered the Warden, though the door had already swung closed. Ark was gone.