The ruins didn't call her.
They remembered her.
Liora stood at the edge of Yharnen, the wind thick with ash and memory. The trees here had no leaves, only twisted limbs that reached toward the sun like they were trying to beg it back.
Kaelen stepped beside her, cloak pulled close. "This place…"
"It's humming," she said softly.
Because it was.
Not music. Not sound.
But recognition.
---
The stones at the village center were still warm beneath her boots.
Sienna trailed behind, running her hand along the carved spirals in the rock. "We left in the middle of the night," she said. "I was barely older than you are now."
"You never came back?"
"Never dared."
Kaelen crouched beside one of the markings—deep, ancient, glowing faintly with the same hue as the mark on Liora's wrist.
He whispered, "This is older than the High Council. Older than any structure we've known."
Sienna nodded. "Because this was the first."
---
The gate
It wasn't a doorway.
