“A forest with no voice,” Lugh said softly.

“What would cause this sort of destruction to a woodland?” I said. “It’s not as if the Nercwys Forest is uncared for.”

“There’s been a bit of movement of late to allow portions of woodland to return to their natural state.”

“This isn’t natural,” I said.

“Trees do die, Beth.”

“But not usually this many in the one area. There’s something wrong here.”

“Maybe.” He moved across to a thin, twisted tree that still maintained a scraggly crown and placed a hand on its trunk. It might still have a song, but I couldn’t hear it from where I was standing, and that was unusual.

“You’re right,” he said, after a moment. “They’re being poisoned.”

“By what?”

He hesitated, briefly closing his eyes as he deepened his connection to the tree. “The cause is seeping down the hill. This tree remains alive because it sits on the outer reach of the flow.”

“Is it natural, do you think? Could it be mining or farming runoff affecting the area?”

“The controls on both are very strict these days, so I doubt it.”

I swept my gaze across the foggy deadness, and another chill ran through me. If it wasn’t human actions killing these trees, then the cause might well be magical. The die-off couldn’t possibly be caused by Eithne’s stone, because it had been around for eons. What had happened to the forest in this area was more recent, but whether that meant it had happened in the last few years or had taken decades, I couldn’t say. It generally did take a longer time for older, more established trees to die, but most of these were little more than saplings. Until we found the cause of the poisoning, we couldn’t be certain about anything.

Not even if this area could be restored.

Lugh led the way forward again, but the going was slow thanks to the fact that we had to scramble over the remnants of fallen trees or skirt around thick thickets of brambles—which were always happy to thrive where nothing else could. The further in we got, the deeper the sense of wrongness became.

As yet another thorn snagged my coat, I grumbled, “If this is simply a re-wilding of woodlands, why the hell would they allow the brambles to explode?”

“They usually don’t. Something is definitely happening here—something aside from the trees dying.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Can you feel anything?”

Magically, he meant. “No, but my knives are in the backpack, so maybe I won’t.”

“It might be best if you get them out and strap them on. I’m really not liking the feel of this place.”

I immediately did so. And felt weirdly safer for their weight, even if they remained inert.

“Anything?” Lugh asked.

I shook my head. He grunted and moved on. As the ground rose, the trunks of the nearby trees became more bleached, suggesting whatever caused this had been happening for quite some time.