The elder. Gone grey to white through a great mane and beard, pale tufted ears, yellow eyes set deep under a heavy brow, worn grey wool and a thin chain at the throat, and rust-coloured moss — or something like it — clotted through the fur of his head and shoulders. They found him already in the sunlit clearing beneath the arch, singing over Llan and working unfamiliar herbal medicine into what was left of the arm.

He was tending a mauled huntsman under a Builder arch that had just swallowed a king, and he did not seem surprised by any of it. How long has Of the Tree been keeping that clearing?