...Silvanus does not speak. The roots that break through stone are his language. A druid listens and hears instructions that have no words, understanding conveyed through the creeping of ivy, the patient ring by ring of a tree's expansion, the silent certainty of seasons that turn without asking permission. In a forest he abandoned three thousand years ago, everything has forgotten what humans looked like. The birds have evolved differently. The trees tower at impossible heights. He walks through them unmoved because his work is never finished, and the moment he declared any portion of nature complete would be the moment he ceased to be the Old Father. Around him, predators hunt and prey scatter and fungi digest everything into fertility, and Silvanus stands in the center of it all with the calm of something that will long outlast any god foolish enough to think it serves rather than precedes them....