Elira woke with frost on her fingertips.
The mist was calm, not still. It moved like breath, slow, rhythmic, sentient.
Kael was resting again, his strength returning in slivers. He could speak without pain now, even lift himself slightly when the children stirred.
They had not been disturbed. Not in days.
But Elira knew better than to trust stillness in a realm that watched.
She wandered deeper into the ruins that morning, guided by instinct more than logic. The twins were sleeping, Kael alert enough to watch them. So she followed the pull.
And found a wall.
Half-collapsed, overgrown with flowering moss. At first, she thought it just another ruin. But beneath the green, something caught her eye.
A symbol. Familiar now.
She brushed away the growth, revealing an arching line carved above a spiral, then a sequence of jagged marks radiating outward like sunrays or lightning.
Kael had called the place old.
But this was something else.
The stone shimmered beneath her touch. Not cold. Not warm. Responsive.
She pressed the charm he'd given her against it.
Nothing happened.
Then, movement.
The spiral deepened. Shifted. Became a path.
Not real. Not physical.
A memory.
It poured into her.
Not images. Not sound.
A feeling. A voice made of pressure and light and grief.
Elira gasped, stumbling backward.
The stone pulsed once.
Then stilled.
The mist had thickened again.
Watching.
Waiting.
Welcoming?