Kael could walk.
Not well. Not far. But his legs held him as he moved slowly around the edges of the ruin.
Elira watched from the archway, the twins bundled beside her. She did not speak. She didn't need to. His effort said enough.
Kael reached a pillar and leaned against it, catching his breath. "I still feel it. Whatever they showed me. It's not a memory, it's... embedded."
Elira stepped forward, helping him sit. "Then it's yours now."
He nodded slowly. "There's a thread. A path. I don't know where it goes, but it pulls."
She met his eyes. "And you'll follow it?"
He didn't answer. Not yet.
Instead, he looked at the twins. "They're changing too. I see it when they sleep. The way the realm responds. It bends around them."
Elira stroked her daughter's hair. "The realm remembers them, even though they've never been here before."
Kael stared into the mist.
"It's watching. But no longer waiting."
The air shifted then, slightly colder. A whisper moved through the vines. The moss pulsed faintly.
Elira rose. "Something's coming."
Kael struggled to stand. "Something old."
Neither of them reached for weapons.
Whatever approached, they knew it would not be something they could kill.
The quiet before the storm had ended.
The storm had seen them.