The Goblin Raider Queen

Two weeks after the breach closes, Rozah stands in the tribe's camp as the ground gives a hungry pulse beneath her boots. Her violet mantle twitches against her shoulders. Around her, half the grass is yellow and brittle.

He points at the nearest patch of mud, where thin roots have left pale, cracked soil behind them. Several goblins stare at Rozah, weapons lowered but uneasy.

The violet mantle tightens once, as if answering something beneath the earth. A few blades of grass near Rozah curl and blacken at the tips.

Rozah the Goblin leaves tribe's camp behind and arrives at forest edge.

Rozah reaches the forest edge, where the air tastes green and wet. The violet mantle on her shoulders hums in answer as she finds the ground marked by old sap scars and fresh deer prints.

She follows the pulse through a curtain of roots and bracken, and the trees open around a hollow tree split by lightning. Sweet sap beads along the seam, glowing faintly with the same hungry color.

Rozah drives the tip of her hand into the split bark and the mantle shudders, then drinks. The roots in her cloak settle into a steadier rhythm, and the yellow sting in the camp seems to ease at once.

A small cluster of moss at the hollow's base brightens from gray to deep green, as if the tree is waking under her touch.