The Beacon Willow

Six months after restoring the Chronicle PIne, Caleb Brytewood faces a new kind of test—one that begins not with a vision, but with a trade contract. Lady Lydia Blackwood needs to establish merchant connections along the coast, and Caleb's pathfinder gift pulls him toward a guardian tree that's been dying for over a century. It should be simple: she handles business while he searches for the corrupted tree. Two separate callings. One convenient journey. But nothing about the Beacon Willow is simple. Set along the fog-shrouded coastal waters where ships vanish and sailors tell stories they half-believe, this fantasy adventure follows Caleb as he discovers that some guardian trees can't be healed through ritual alone. The Beacon Willow—once a sacred light that guided mariners to safety—now lures vessels onto the rocks with its poisoned glow. Entire crews have disappeared into the mist, and behind the corruption lies a devastating truth: generations of neglect have twisted the tree's purpose beyond recognition. What follows tests everything Caleb thought he knew about being a Keeper. Shipwrecks. Treacherous salt marshes. Hostile locals who blame outsiders for their losses. A restoration that demands more than courage—it requires undoing the damage of centuries, finding what was lost when no one thought to preserve it, and facing the consequences of choices made long before he was born. Because some questions don't have easy answers: Why does corruption come so easily while healing demands everything? Why must Keepers sacrifice repeatedly to fix what shouldn't break in the first place? And when the cost of restoration exceeds what anyone should pay—do you walk away, or do you pay it anyway?