Varaan froze as her gaze locked onto the Mirror. Her body, honed by countless hunts and centuries of survival, responded before her mind fully processed the sensation. She flinched—an involuntary step backward, a slight trembling in her fingers—and her eyes narrowed in alarm. Her lips parted, and she exhaled slowly, the vapor of her breath curling in the freezing air.
"It's singing," she said softly, not in awe, but with dread. Her voice didn't carry across the ruins. It felt like a confession—an admission that something ancient had stirred inside her bones.
Kai heard it too. Though there was no music in the air, no strings or voices, a vibration wormed its way through his skull and down into his chest. It wasn't a sound, not exactly—more a resonance, a thrumming just below the threshold of hearing that set his nerves on edge.
