Orders came at first light, sealed with blue wax and a silver thread. The wax meant routine duty. The thread meant someone important was watching.
Elira, Mira, and Kael met two scholars at the western gate. Both wore travel coats traced with runes to keep out cold and stray static. One carried a brass case; the other had a bandolier of glass vials and needle-like antennae.
"We'll work the perimeter," the older scholar said. "We measure residual magic power and wave patterns, and tag any element signatures. We will not enter the main ruin."
He tapped the case. "Power gauge, wave scope, and an element tracer. These cannot record the feeling of magic, but they can read how much is present, how it moves, and which elements show in the flow."
"Understood," Mira said. "We'll keep you covered."
Kael rolled his shoulders. "If anything stirs, get behind stone. We end it fast."
Elira checked her sword and, without thinking, brushed her pendant. The stone lay cool at her throat.
They followed the broken road back to the old site. The hills were quiet; the air felt tight, like a string drawn too far. The ruin waited like a cracked jaw in the grass, ribs of stone set against the sky.
They did not go in. The scholars set their kit by a collapsed side passage where faint mist still bled through the cracks.
The younger scholar unfolded the wave scope—an etched dish that hummed when tuned. He turned a dial. A soft note came up from the metal. "Low amplitude. Not flat. A pulse every seven counts. Drift… southeast."
The older scholar opened the power gauge and watched a thin needle rise a hair. "Shallow power. Not enough to build. Enough to answer a knock."
He clipped the element tracer's hair-fine thread across the mouth of the passage. It went faint blue, then green, then dimmed. "Water and grass residue. Old. No active push."
"Good," Kael said. "Let's keep it that way."
They walked the outer ring and tested four more points. Numbers changed a little, never much. At the fifth point, the dish's hum climbed and the needle in the gauge moved higher.
"Someone poked it," the older scholar murmured. He brushed dust from shallow cuts in the stone. "Crude calling marks. Fresh."
Mira crouched. "It's knocking, not opening. Enough to wake noise, not the core."
"Then someone was here recently," Kael said, "or still is."
He raised a low rampart with a sweep of his hand. "We take it slow."
Shadows shifted in the fallen mouth of a side hall. The scholars stayed down behind stone. The three moved forward in a shallow triangle—Kael in front, Mira left, Elira right.
The first enemy sounded like dry leaves. Stone wolves, their skins pebbled and their eye sockets hollow, slid from the cracks. More followed. Old spawn, called by old tricks.
"Form one," Mira said.
Water gathered in thin ribbons; grass threads guided it into lanes. She drew the wolves into a tight path.
Kael stamped. A short wall folded the lane at an angle. He ran a wire of lightning along the edge. The first wolf touched it and dropped with a pop.
Elira stepped, cut, and returned to guard. "Breeze Edge!"
Her wind split the second wolf. A third leapt; her blade turned, clipping its throat. It fell without a sound. Control felt clean and steady.
They cleared the lane in under a minute. The wave scope hummed on. The tracer thread glowed once, then dimmed.
"Residual only," the younger scholar said. "Proceed."
Two more points. The same again. At the last bend of the ring, the air went colder. The dish's note sharpened, like a finger pressed on the metal.
"Power rising," the older scholar said. "Not from the ruin. From the right."
They turned, ready for more stone wolves.
People stepped from a broken arch.
They wore gray cloaks cut to move, hoods low, faces scarfed. No marks. No unit badges. They carried crackling staves and cheap rune-plates, handled with calm hands.
"Back," Kael said to the scholars. "Now."
The lead figure did not rush. He glanced at the brass case, then the scope. His voice was rough and flat. "Leave the tools. Walk away."
"No," Mira said.
"Then forgive me," he answered, and flicked his wrist.
Smoke burst, rolling low and thick. Dull flares popped inside it. Figures moved fast and low. Two angled for the scholars, one for the case, one for the scope.
Elira surged left. She cut the smoke into rags with a sweeping wind. A cloaked figure slid under her guard and reached for the scope. She cut again, tight and quick.
For a breath, the air went wrong. The edge of her wind darkened—colder, heavier. The man's shoulders seized; he flew backward like the strike had weighed twice as much. He hit a fallen slab and lay still.
Elira blinked. The dark rim thinned and was gone. Had she imagined it?
"Right!" Kael barked.
She turned. Two rushed the scholars. Kael ripped a rib of stone from the ground and slammed it down to block the lane. Lightning fanned across it, catching both in a crackle of sparks. They dropped with groans, arms numb.
"Grass bind," Mira said.
Vines broke the soil, caught ankles, and tightened. Ice thin as glass sealed over them. Two more fell, cursing.
The leader realized his mistake and broke back. "Smoke!"
Another canister rolled and burst. White fog poured out with a bitter tang. Lamps in the fog flared, then died. Vision shrank to arm's length.
"On me," Kael said. "Shield."
Stone folded around the scholars. Mira raised a thin water screen; it caught stray sparks and swallowed them. Elira took the forward slot, blade across her chest, feeling for motion through the drag of air.
A figure slipped through a gap. Elira cut to stop him. Again the edge deepened—colder, heavier. His staff split; shock ran up his arm. He dropped to one knee with a choked sound. The seam in the air peeled away and was gone.
"Retreat pattern," the leader snapped. "Mark and go."
He tossed a small coin against stone. A sigil flashed, then folded in on itself, leaving a smear of ash that lifted like breath.
"Back!" Kael shouted.
The ash drifted toward the instruments. Mira snapped a water lash and broke the drift apart.
A woman's voice came from the fog, dry and close. "Leave a message: the pulse wasn't meant for you."
Boots scraped. Cloaks slid into dead corridors. When the air cleared, gray shapes were already far away.
Elira held her stance until her hands steadied. The scholars checked their kit. Nothing taken. Nothing broken.
"Are you all right?" Mira asked, still scanning.
"We are," the older scholar said. "Thanks to you."
Kael nudged a fallen attacker with his boot. "Who sent you?"
No answer. The man's eyes were already closed again.
"We should go," Mira said. "Someone will come looking."
They left by a different path. The dish's hum softened with each step. The needle fell. The tracer thread went clear. The ruin shrank behind them, a dead thing with a restless dream.
They said little on the road. Mira carried the scope with a hand on the dish. Kael watched the grass where wind made thin patterns. Elira walked with her hand near her pendant and tried not to think of the two heavy cuts.
At the gate, they handed the scholars to a clerk and signed a plain form: residual readings taken, minor hostile contact, no loss of life or gear. On paper, it was a normal day.
It wasn't.
At dusk, Telwin and Gray entered Vaelis's study. Same cold lamp. Same clean desk. Same calm face.
"Report," Vaelis said.
"Third party confirmed," Telwin said. "Human. Unmarked. Targeted the scholars' kit. Short fight. Team held the field."
"Notes on Elira?" Vaelis asked.
Gray chose his words. "Twice, during a forward cut, observers felt a change. The wind at her blade's edge grew colder, heavier. Brief. No trace we could measure. But we felt it."
"No element reading?" Vaelis asked.
"The tracer marks ambient flow," Telwin said. "Not what a person carries inside."
Vaelis stared at the window a moment. "Continue observation. Do not approach the team. Do not engage the other party without orders."
They left. Vaelis stayed with the lamp and the glass.
Outside, the last light clung to the towers like ash.
He rested his hands on the desk and laughed once, low and dry. "So," he said to his own reflection, "there are heirs after all."
His reflection did not smile.
Mira did not sleep at once. She took off her rings, wiped them clean, and wrote a few lines in a small book—no numbers, only words that tried to hold sensations: colder, heavier, silent, brief. She slid the book into a drawer. It was not proof. It was a reminder.
Kael stayed in the armory longer than needed, rewrapping the same band twice, then again. He pictured a narrow fight with no room to fall back, the extra weight coming onto Elira's blade at the wrong time. Where would he stand? How would he keep both of them upright? He tied the last knot hard.
Elira sat at her window and watched the courtyard flag fold and unfold. The pendant warmed once, not heat but pressure, light as breath.
"Don't come closer," she whispered to whatever part of herself had moved. "Not yet."
The wind hesitated, then slid around her gently, like a river learning a stone.
Far down the hall, a boot turned on stone and paused. A shadow leaned back into deeper shadow and was gone.
Elira did not see him. She closed her hand over the pendant and counted her breaths until the room felt like a room again.
In the yard, the flag folded once more.
The night did not lift.
And the echo remained.