The Idoneth came inland once. They remember that.
They remember golden light through the trees, leaves shifting in a wind they could not feel. They remember the warmth of the ethersea still clinging to them, the certainty that they would return to it soon.
But that light is gone. The trees have stretched into gnarled silhouettes, the warmth has given way to stagnant waters, and the path that led them here no longer exists.
They know they are lost.
The elders still follow the tides, though there are none to be found. They chart the eddies of mist, map the twisting roots, study the flickering lights on the water’s surface for signs that the way back has opened again. They remember the sea: its vastness, its hunger, the cold embrace of its depths. But they have been away too long. The ethersea is a whisper now, and they are no longer sure if it is calling them home or leading them deeper into the dream.
The young know nothing of the sea, only the stories. They were born to the blackwater, to the roots and the reeds. They move through the bog as their ancestors once moved through the depths, following unseen currents that no longer carry them anywhere.
But they all remember the Golden Forest. They do not know how long ago they entered it, only that it was before. Before the twilight, before the stillness, before the sinking, endless dark. And if they keep moving, if they keep searching, if they keep following the last traces of the ethersea that still linger in the mist, they will find it again.