The effects did not announce themselves.
They never did.
By the time the council realized something had shifted, it had already spread beyond the eastern stronghold.
It began with the wards.
Minor fluctuations. Inconsistent readings. Sigils reporting alignment changes without any recorded activation.
The mages argued over instruments.
The instruments were correct.
In the lower districts, people dreamed.
Not of fire.
Not of blood.
Of stone corridors. Of doors that almost opened. Of a presence that did not speak but waited.
No one could explain why they woke with a sense of direction.
Only that something felt… settled.
⸻
Seraphina felt it before anyone told her.
The chamber beneath the stronghold remained quiet, inert by design—but the silence had changed texture. It no longer
