The breaking of the Great Stone Way tickled the roots of the grove. A quiet breeze, chilled and brittle, swept up through the tops of the trees, as if the Martyr himself had sent the Sakjeden his last breath. Umesh stirred. Amid the drops of rain beginning to thrum against his highest leaves, he heard No One’s tiny feet running across the bridges of branches it had intertwined over centuries.

“Little one.” Umesh rumbled as No One flitted over his roots, which had grown into arcs far away from the earth. Umesh was proud of his roots; they stretched further than those of any other trees he watched over. He was the eldest, the sagest, and the saddest of the Sakjeden, the fortune telling trees, oldest and wisest beings on the continent of Icaria.

No One stopped in front of Umesh’s trunk and hugged him. A slip of a being, and even Umesh was not sure if No One was Fae or some other creature entirely, No One stood no taller than a stalk of wheat, hair shaggy, wispy in some parts and thick in others. Its eyes, colored by its mood or the shape of the breeze, shone a deep bright violet as Umesh gazed down at it. “It is time,” No One announced. Fae spoke like chimes of wind over flowers and humans like the shuffling mountains. No One’s voice was the reason Umesh could not distinguish its race; it spoke with the wiles of rivers and the depth of the sea. Perhaps, Umesh thought to himself, No One had crawled from the bottom of the Ocean, just to see what was causing such a noise in Icaria.

“It’s time for what?” Umesh asked.

“It is time for a new age.”

Umesh noticed belatedly that No One had not blinked since swinging onto his roots. Little caused the Sakjeden consternation, for they’d grown old, and had moved away from man’s fires. No One rattled their sap from their bark in ways that made Umesh feel uncomfortably youthful.

“What does that mean?” One of the great fortune telling trees, Umesh waited, as all ancient palimpsests do, watching waves of past and future crash into the present. Sometimes even Umesh couldn’t decipher the hieroglyphs. Sentences grew muddled, words seemed to change. Somehow No One knew when the present was shifting, irrevocably. No One liked to tell him as much and Umesh appreciated that.

“It means a great hope.” No One sniffed the air, reminding Umesh irresistibly of a rabbit. “And a terrible sadness.” Suddenly donning a frightened expression, No One scampered up Umesh’s trunk, using the bark for handholds.

“But I will send her some of the sun and some of the moon and we too, will have hope and sadness.” No One squatted on one of Umesh’s shortest branches and peered at him, owlish.

As a cold wind rose from the ground once more, No One stood and gracefully spun, small tunic like a white lily in the gloom. Out of its mouth, it breathed a collection of tiny golden lights, like glowing bubbles, that began to float north.

“What did you give?” Umesh asked. The grove began to shake as the trees who had witnessed the light-giving, clacked their branches comfortingly against each other.

“I gave her stars.” No One smiled and padded to the edge of Umesh’s branch before swinging to another tree in the grove. Silently, No One disappeared into the night, as the clouds above converged and the grey air gave way to rain.