The girl presses her back against the old oak's bark, the leather-bound book clutched tight to her chest. The word she found written on its first page — just one, in ink the colour of storm clouds — has been burning in her throat since dawn. She closes her eyes and breathes it out, barely a whisper: a sound like seevar, or perhaps sevren, something her tongue almost knows but cannot quite hold. The forest goes still. No wind. No birdsong. Then, from somewhere between the roots and the shadows, a pair of amber eyes blink open — steady, curious, unafraid. A small fox with rust-orange fur steps into the pale light and tilts its head at her, as though it has been waiting all morning for exactly this.