Mirren had tended the Briar for nine winters. She knew which graves to leave alone. The whole forest had grown over an old war, with bone under the roots and rust under the moss. That morning the thorns wept sap the color of a bruise. Under a hawthorn she found a grey hand pushing up through the dirt. It twitched, then grabbed at the air, reaching for her.

Mirren didn't touch it. Nine winters had taught her one trick: when the dead reach up, you give them something else to hold. She pulled a bundle of dried rowan from her belt and pressed it into the cold grey palm. The fingers closed around it and went still. But under her boots, the whole hill began to hum.

The humming rose into a sound like a hundred people groaning at once. Mirren saw the truth: the rowan only quieted one grave at a time, and the field had thousands. She couldn't out-bundle the whole hill. She needed the source — whatever was calling them. She turned toward the old watchtower, the only thing tall enough to wake a forest.