The room went quiet after Celia's words.
Not empty quiet. Not the kind that came from uncertainty over what to say next. This was the sort of silence that formed when everyone present understood the shape of a conclusion before anyone wanted to touch it.
The live map still hovered over the table, casting colored light across the cramped records room. Green clustered around Veyrhold. Yellow, orange, and red stains pulsed across sections of Eldervale like injuries spread through the land. To the east, the blue Apex-level heat wave remained where Liam's group had encountered the eyeless pack. It did not move toward the settlement. It did not scatter. It lingered with the unsettling patience of something alive enough to choose stillness.
To the north, the map showed nothing.
That absence had been strange before.
Now it felt worse.
