Lucien remained still.
The figures below spoke.
Their language was unfamiliar.There was no cadence he recognized and no roots he could immediately trace to any known linguistic families of the Thousand Races. The language was dense, heavy with consonants.
Yet their expressions told a story even before meaning did.
Tension pulled their features tight. Their shoulders hunched and their thick, mineral layered hands kept drifting toward tools that looked more like survival implements than weapons.
They were afraid. Not in a panicked way, but in the exhausted manner of those who had been afraid for too long.
Lucien listened.
He did not attempt to force comprehension.
Instead, he observed structure.
Language was not magic. It was pattern.
