The dunes of Duskthorn didn't hum like the valley.
They scraped.
They hissed.
They whispered through cracked sandstone and dry riverbeds where nothing had bloomed in decades.
Echo walked alone.
No map.
No banner.
Only the spiral humming low against his palm and the weight of dust gathering in his cloak folds.
The Spiral Way had reached this place.
He could feel it—etched into the rocks, burned into the wind.
But something was wrong.
The spiral here had a jagged edge.
Not a curve.
A cut.
---
He arrived at the edge of a ridge just before sunset.
Below, a gathering.
A dozen wolves, maybe more, standing in rows beneath a torn cloth banner.
They didn't wear listening stones.
They wore crests—black spiral tattoos over one eye, the lines sharp, too clean, too deliberate.
Echo knelt behind a rock shelf and listened.
A voice echoed across the camp.
Male. Confident. Practiced.
"You were forgotten by the valley. Left to rot in sand and silence."
Murmurs of agreement.
