Chapter 59: The Call of Destiny.

The first pale fingers of dawn crept over the horizon, banishing the shadows of night with their gentle golden caress. In the heart of the forest glade, Chloe stirred restlessly in her sleep; her eyes fluttered open to look stubbornly at the awakening world, now more present and defined than it had been in past days. Everting the dew-kissed colors of the new day flushed over the dell, she found her own spirit in harmony with the primordial timpani rolling through the land itself. The birds have long wakened, taking up their chorus of celebration, with their trilling refrains joining the polyphonic symphony of rustling leaves and gurgling streams in an ageless paean of rebirth. It was a sound that, really, called to the very core of her being. Its transcendent harmonies buzzed through her bones and sinews with a profound bodily resonance. This was the eternal cadence to which all life, from the mightiest oak to the most diminutive mite, moved in perfect synchrony. The woman reborn i