They descended from the ridge as dawn finally broke, a pale gold bleeding into the tattered sky. Smoke curled from distant valleys where leyline storms had ignited the old wards, but between the scars of magic, new growth shimmered. Wildflowers bloomed in impossible colors—midnight indigo, ember-red, frostwhite—flourishing in the wake of devastation like the land, too, was remembering how to heal.
But they had little time to marvel.
By midday, the pulse returned.
Not in the ground this time—but in Frost's chest.
She stumbled, breath hitching. West caught her before she could fall, his arm steady as stone. But her eyes were wide, unfocused—gazing at something he couldn't see.
"It's… still echoing," she whispered. "There's more. Not a rift—something beneath the rifts."
Sebastian crouched beside them, face drawn. "You anchored your soul to the Garden. But that tether—something's pulling from the other end."
