The morning of the eight hundredth year dawned with a light that seemed to come from everywhere at once. The sun rose over the eastern ridge, but its light was joined by the glow of the source stone, the shimmer of the song threads, and the reflection of the new spring. The garden was more alive than it had ever been. It had become something that was beyond the understanding of any single generation. It had become eternal.
Ronan and Aisling had passed on the guardianship long ago. The current guardians were a pair named Cillian and Maeve. They were the most recent in a line that stretched back eight centuries. They had been raised in the garden, taught the old language and the new, and they understood the vision in its fullest form.
They stood at the pool that morning and watched the lig
