Prologue: Linnëa
A child elf flitted through the forest, spinning on her heels and laughing with a tinkling, magical sound. Slanting sunlight danced in the child elf's hair, small rainbows of split light bowing from the dark, silky strands. Her pale skin vied against the sunlight, pale and brilliant enough in its own beauty to be almost as magnificent as the jealous sun. The child elf fairly exuded light from somewhere inside her, a magical flow through her young veins.
The child elf's father followed solemnly, silently, behind the child. Even as he watched his daughter lose herself in her playful reverie, he knew that this elf child was more magical than any of the other magical elf children. All elf children were special with the raw and beautiful flow of new magic from the dragons fresh in their veins, but his daughter, he undoubtedly knew, had something more… or rather, she somehow had more. More magic than the other elf children. More control over the flow through her veins. More… aware.
He watched his child with unguarded affection, but a deep abiding worry weighed heavily upon his heart. What magical malice, what strange, horrible fate must invariably await those in possession of such great natural magic, like his sweet daughter? Deep ponderings full of worry often kept him awake in the night. She was not like other elf children, and his foreboding nature told him that some ill fate awaited his daughter. The knowledge almost drove him mad, and hate swelled in his chest at the thought of how no other elf need ever feel such anxiety over his own within the deep, peaceful confines of Du Weldenvarden Forest. He had already lost his mate to an unforeseen and grotesquely unexpected tragedy. He could not bare the death also of his daughter. However, as all elves unwaveringly do, he kept his face well guarded from expression.
As he watched, the elf child darted behind a tree and ducked beneath a flowering bush, disappearing from sight.
"Linnëa!" he called, fear spiking his heart, though the emotion never showed on his face. "Linnëa, I cannot see you!"
The elf child hopped to her feet, once again in her father's sight. A delighted grin stretched across her face. Skipping to her father's side, she tilted her head back to look up into her father's stately face.
"Do not worry, Father," she soothed, her enchanting, high soprano voice turning their Elven language into music tumbling over her tongue, "nothing can happen to me here. No, not here in the forest. I love the forest, and I know that the forest loves me!"
Her father smiled with amused affection. "And how do you know this, that the forest loves you?"
Her eyes grew big as she told him. "I know because I can hear the forest whispering to me."
The elf felt apprehensive, gazing down at his only daughter. "What kinds of things does the forest whisper to you?"
Linnëa lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper and beckoned for him to lean in closer to hear. "When I close my eyes, I imagine that I can almost hear the forest whispering that it will embrace me, hold me in its arms, and call me Mother. The forest whispers that I must come to it when my heart is broken, and it will find a healing tonic and a new purpose for me. Only, I wasn't imagining it. It really is a whisper. It's a voice like the wind running through the tree branches, or like the rain sliding down the leaves of the forest. And so I know that the forest loves me and wants me here often."
The elf fought to control his expression, but despair won as his face gave over the fear he felt in his heart.
Easily recognizing the fear and despair in his face, Linnëa patted her father's arm comfortingly. "Do not worry, Father," she reassured him with her musical voice. "All will be well. The forest said so."