Elowen stared at the fire for a while longer, listening to it crackle, watching the fairy-like sparks and embers drift up amongst the bare branches of the Lysalm tree. The silence seemed to stretch off into the night, and then, as softly as the breeze blowing in from the desert, she began to speak.

‘The people that lived here, they were very different from the mages of Arborven. The tree gave them magic and they used it to make treekeepers and shapewalkers, just like we do. But they didn’t appreciate it the same way. They had no interest in living alongside Lysalm, in building their lives around it. The magic was a gift they felt they had a right to. They used it to make themselves more comfortable, to make everything easier. All these great stone buildings were made with it. They filled the city with lights, sounds, tastes and smells. It was a playground of wonderful experiences, all created by draining the tree’s power. And the more they used it, the more they wanted. They became like spoiled children, thinking they were somehow entitled to live that way, just because they had the good luck to be born here.

‘Anyway, as you know all too well, wherever there is a tree of light, there is also a dark sister. And that other tree will devote itself only to consuming and killing its opposite.

‘Out past the forest there, a shadow tree grew. It became stronger and stronger, sending out its forces in waves. The Almberg shapewalkers fought them off bravely, but there are no Shield Mountains around this city. They couldn’t hold them back for long.

‘I remember there being attacks almost daily. Sometimes brief skirmishes on the edge of Almberg, sometimes battles in the streets. The treekeepers told the city elders to build defences, to come up with some plan to stop the invasion before it was too late. Before they had to use the heart of Lysalm to kill the shadow tree.

‘But they didn’t seem to care. They were quite happy for the heart of their tree to be cut out and used. They were sure that life would go on as before. They had even become so arrogant, they thought they didn’t need the tree for magic. ‘We’ll find a way of getting it ourselves’, they said. ‘We’re so clever and ingenious – how hard can it be?’

‘So they took Lysalm’s heart out and carried it to the shadow tree. Almost all of their shapewalkers died fighting through the seepers. Many of the treekeepers were also lost trying to get the heart close enough to do its work. In the end they succeeded, but at great cost. The shadow tree shrivelled up and vanished. And without its heart, Lysalm began to die too.’

‘That must have been terrible,’ said Lug. He gently squeezed Elowen’s shoulder. ‘Did all this happen to the city when the tree died?’