Around the downed tree's base, dark forms writhed.

Its roots moved. Wide and sluggish where they joined the huge knot at the tree's trunk, their tapering bulk bent and curled like earth-stained serpents upon the ground. Two wormed their way along the trunk and into the bulk to the birch's leaves.

Chap had so fully focused on the toppling birch that he had not seen its roots come alive. One of them must have struck him down. He squirmed on the ground, trying to get up.

Wynn screamed from somewhere beneath the birch's remaining leaves.

Wynn heard Lily struggling to escape, but she could not see the dog among the cloud of leaves and branches pinning her to the ground. She tried to roll off her back and crawl out.

Her left leg snapped straight, and her back flattened against the ground.

Something curled and twisted up Wynn's leg, and her breath began to race. It crushed inward around her calf. Wynn screamed out in pain under its grinding pressure.

Leaves dangling against her face turned blue-white as her mantic sight surged up.

Lily's howl pierced Wynn's ears, and a chorus of leaf-wings roared in her skull.

Abomination! Sick thing that spies on us. Your taint rises in your flesh.

The grip on her leg jerked hard, and Wynn slid across the ground. Leaves and branches lashed her face and arms. The near-blue mist of Spirit permeating the leaves turned to a blur. She clutched desperately at branches only to have them bend and snap in her hands.

Wynn hooked her arm around the base of one branch and held on. The ache in her knee spiked into her hip as her whole body was pulled straight. A snarling and thrashing rose among the leaves above her.

Before Wynn's eyes, the mist of Spirit moved within the tree's bark.

It burned with a brilliance she had seen before, but only when she had looked upon Chap with her mantic sight.

Flowing blue-white wormed back and forth through the wood, as if alive and willful.

You hear us… listen to what is not for a mortal to know. Now you see us, yes? And you should not!

Leaves above Wynn's head split apart. A head glowing with blue-white mist shoved through at her face. Wynn almost lost her grip in fright, until she saw crystalline eyes.

One of the majay-hi snatched her tunic's shoulder with its teeth.

Chap heard Lily howl and then saw Wynn's legs emerge from the branches near the tree's base. A root was wrapped tightly around her shin and knee. Chap righted himself and staggered toward her as the pack bolted out of the forest from all sides.

Three dogs dove into the tree's bulk as the dark elder spun out in the clearing. He wove back and forth before the thrashing roots. Chap called to his kin.

Stop! You are discovered, but harming a mortal will change nothing.

Clinging dirt scattered from the roots as they rose in the air. One came down hard, rolling along the ground toward Chap.

He scuttled aside as the root lashed the earth, and mulch sprayed across his body.

The dark elder rushed in. His jaws snapped sharply over the root's narrow end and severed through it.

Chap's panic washed away in growing rage. His kin would not listen to him, and they tried to take Wynn. All because she had heard them and caught their deception, as he had. Lily hopped free from the birch's leaves, andtwo majay-hi followed after her.

One root rose high into the night. It lashed over backward into the mass of the downed tree. Leaves exploded upward under a clatter of snapping branches and a screeching yelp.

The root gripping Wynn coiled and jerked, and the sage spun out across the clearing. The shoulder of her tunic was torn open.

Three of the pack had gone in after Lily and Wynn, but only two had come out.

Chap rushed toward Wynn as his anger burst forth at his kin.

Now you injure your own children who took flesh long ago? It is you who have lost your way!

Wynn lay stunned as the root coiled up her leg, reaching for her torso. Its tip passed her chest, reaching for her throat, and Chap seized it, biting deep.

He ripped hard, shredding it with his teeth. Another root arched upward from the tree's base, and he whirled to grip Wynn's tunic.

The root arced downward as Lily appeared beside him. She took hold of Wynn beside him, and they both lunged backward, jerking the sage away. The root cracked down on bare earth, sending a shudder up Chap's legs.

He rushed into the open clearing before the tree's exposed base. He ground his paws through the scattered leaves and rooted himself amid the whirling wind.

No more will suffer for your hidden schemes.

He felt the elemental surge of Earth and Air, the moisture of Water within them, and even Fire from the heat of his own flesh. They mingled with Spirit from his own body as he closed on his kin.

Wynn tumbled across the ground. Then a crash filled her ears and thunder shook through the earth beneath her. She rolled over to find Lily beside her and saw Chap bolt out into the clearing.

She cowered for an instant at the sight of the tree's roots writhing in the air. Beyond Chap, the pack elder and two more majay-hi made quick darting passes as they taunted the roots. Each dog was two overlaid images in Wynn's mantic sight. Within their silver-gray forms glowed Spirit of blue-whitemist.But not the tree and its roots-and not Chap.

The whiter essence of the Fay moved like shifting vapors within that dark-stained wood. And Chap was the only singular form Wynn saw.

One whole shape, glowing with brilliance.His fur glistened like luminous threads of white silk in the moonlight, and his eyes scintillated as if holding a light of their own.

And the light of him began to burn.

Wynn did not know what he was doing, but her eyes started to sting. She grabbed Lily with both hands to hold the dog back.

Trails of white mist rose from Chap like vapor in the shape of flames. Wynn squinted against the pain of his light, but could not take her eyes off of him. He stalked inward, low and tight, toward the base of the tree.

The pack elder and his companions pulled up short. They backed away with their eyes on Chap. The roots in the air quivered in hesitation, and then one cracked downward.

Wynn stopped breathing as it fell directly upon Chap.

In a burning blur, he leaped out of its path. The root hit the earth, and Wynn felt the impact beneath her. Before it could coil back again, Chap threw himself on it.

Through the white mist of his form, she thought she saw his jaws close upon the arching root.

And the light of his body flashed.

Wynn cringed as if stepping from a pitch black room into full sunlight. A thousand leaf-wings crackled inside her head. She heard only screeching blind panic and no words. Chap's lone voice rose above them.

I will tear you… rend you… I will swallow down your severed pieces into nothing!

Wynn clung to Lily as her sight slowly returned. Swirling colored blotches marred everything in the night. She barely made out Chap's muted form pacing before the birch's base.

But Chap was the only thing moving.

If you come again for me or mine…I will come for you!

Slowly Wynn's sight cleared more and more. Her mantic vision gone, all she saw in the moonlight was Chap standing tense and watchful.

The gnarled ball of the birch's base towered before him, but its roots extended in stillness as if the tall tree had just toppled. No hint of wind stirred the stray leaves fluttering to the ground.

Chap stood rigid, as Wynn crawled toward him on hands and knees.

His kin were gone.

Chap felt the vibrancy slowly fade from his body. He had turned on his own kind. He could taste them like blood in his mouth.

No, not his kin.Not anymore.

He wanted no more of them. They cared nothing for the lives they toyed with in silent schemes for a world they claimed was theirs. They would sacrifice those he had come to care for-all for some purpose they would not share with him.