Elara refused. That night, she walked the oak’s full sircom — three hundred paces of moss, roots, and hidden hollows where foxes raised their young. She measured not with a rope but with her heartbeat: one hundred for the nests, one hundred for the shade over the well, one hundred for the names of lovers carved into its skin.
The merchant returned with axes. “Prove its worth,” he sneered. sircom size
“The sircom size has grown,” whispered the oak’s bark, rough and wise. “And so have you.” Elara refused