I sat at the edge of her bed and listened to her shuddering breaths. I had a hard time looking at my love. Instead, I found myself staring at my hands. Once strong and full of life, now they were wrinkled and spotted. I hadn’t looked at my hands in a long, long time. Really looked, with intent. Now that I was, I realized that they weren’t familiar anymore. To age was a part of living life. I knew that. Yet, it had always been something in the back of my mind as I pursued the next adventure, the next spell. The excitement of fame and wealth and power. “Alred,” Natali called. Her voice sounded stronger than yesterday. I turned to look at her and hid away my pain behind a smile. She always seemed to have an intuitive notion when I was becoming too disheartened. Not that it mattered this time, as the weight of her approaching death smothered all my other thoughts and shaded all my actions. “You,” she spoke slowly between gasping breaths, “have too much faith in your old teacher.” I knew Natali’s opinion of the man. Whatever words had been shared between her and that nature elemental outside of his tower she kept to herself, but it had changed her view. Before she met Nemon, I had done much to describe his eccentricities, a way to prepare her for meeting the wizard himself. Natali had always been quick to judge others, and find fault within them—a habit that had saved my life more than once, but still aggravated me to no end. Her reaction to Nemon had been different. Before she met him, she had seemed optimistic, almost excited about the prospect. Yet, whatever words the elemental shared with her at the time had shadowed her opinion. Now, it seemed she held him in low esteem. It confused me, as I didn’t know why her opinion changed, but I still defended him whenever the topic arose. This time was no different, “Too much faith? When I discovered the Pestilence, it took me a week to leave my room. Even then, I could only react with fear. Goblins? Wild monsters? Those don’t scare me. Not like those creatures do. And to my shame, my reaction was to hide away. Even this place,” I gestured at the crystal walls of the tower. “Is a way of hiding. But do you know what he did? His first reaction was to look for ways to defeat the creatures. I spied on his workings, and he was already developing methods to defeat the beasts. Not to fight them. To defeat them. Even now—” “Lord Alred,” my wife’s voice interrupted me. I hadn’t realized it, but I had risen and began pacing back and forth as I spoke. Her interruption brought me to a halt, and I had to once again take in the image of my dying wife. I couldn’t bring myself to smile this time, not when she barely looked alive. She didn’t let me dwell too long, though. Instead, she spoke the two words that I dreaded to hear, “It’s time.” I watched her struggle to sit up for just a brief moment before the full meaning of the words hit me. Then, I rushed to her side. The ceremony had been prepared for weeks now, and our current room was only a small walk away from it. It took me great effort to lift her and carry her on my side. More physical effort than I had given in a long time, and had it been anyone else, I would have used a golem to carry them. Yet, for me, no matter how much I struggled with her small weight, it was personal. With staggering steps, we left the small room and stained bed to approach the field I had ordered prepared. Wagonloads of dirt came through the portals every day, to cover the crystal land that we had taken. To create fields for planting, and provide places to bury waste. But this place would be untouched by either. Four great stone pillars, wrought by geomancers, each displaying druidic designs prepared rested atop the thickest layer of stone in the quartz plane. Seeds of every type we could attain had been brought and planted in the soil outside those pillars, but only a few had sprouted so far. It smelled strongly of dirt and stone. The stone beneath this nascent garden was hollow. A prepared crypt for my own body when I passed. Warded and blessed with as great an expense as I could spare. Defenses that would extend to protect the garden for centuries or more. A secret I had kept from Natali, and one I wouldn't share now. As adamant as she was over this ritual, I felt equally so in my desire to protect her legacy in death. Other druids saw our approach, stopped their work, and followed behind us as we hobbled forward. She discussed the ceremony many times before, and my part was only to help her walk around the pillars thrice before leading her to the barren center. Yet I still feared. I feared for her loss, for what I would do when she was gone. I feared for how much I would hurt, as selfish as that sounds. Despite my fear, though, I lent my strength as we slowly began walking around those four pillars. Her aged and broken voice chanted a druidic spell I had never heard before. The sound was soft at first, but slowly her voice grew louder. I felt the power building in her, and building the others behind us as they, too, took up the chant. Their tone effortlessly matched that of my wife's, and the rise and fall of their cadence seemed as though they were born for this singular task. I stopped focusing on that, though, or our walk. The burdens of my body left my mind, and I found myself simply watching her face as she worked. I didn’t want to remember her as the sick woman lying in the bed moments before. I wanted to remember her how she was now. Strong, vibrant, determined. Her eyes inspired by the magic she worked. That was the woman I fell in love with. Even if her face was now aged, it was still as beautiful to me as ever before. Three times we walked around those pillars, though my thoughts were elsewhere and I hadn’t counted. I had been lost in the moment, daydreaming of our past. So far away from the present, I startled when she turned to step inside the pillars. She was weak now, barely able to move her foot a single step, but I helped her in every way I could. She was too proud of a woman to allow me to carry her. Even though I knew this, I was still tempted to try. It took over an hour to reach the center, and my wife could no longer contain the strain of the walk from her face. It was a pained expression that left my insides churning. When we stopped there in the center, she turned and reached one hand out to touch the side of my face. With a sad look in her eye, she whispered, “I love you, Alred.” I watched her through teary eyes and opened my mouth to tell her how much I loved her as well. But no words came. That didn’t matter, though, because she had already closed her eyes and raised her hands over her head. The effects of the spell were taking hold. She let out a low groan as her body shuddered and changed. Her robe split open as her feet became roots, then tore further as her body grew to a tree’s trunk. Her head and arms reached higher even than the pillars around us as the spell finalized her new form. From the woman I knew to a great oak tree. At some point, I had fallen backward and was caught by a pair of strong hands behind me. Hands of the other druids, no doubt. I didn't look nor ask. I wasn’t concerned with anything but my wife. Even as the seeds planted around the pillars sprouted into vibrant new plantlife, and the chanting continued, I remained fixated. Eventually, those same hands lowered me down to sit on the barren dirt around the tree and I came back to myself. “I love you too, Natali.”