Ayaana's POV:
The Pale Verge didn't refuse the existence of life.
That was the first thing I understood once I started to listen.
It resisted—yes. It recoiled, flinched, and thinned itself where growth pressed too hard. But resistance was not hate. It was fear. The same instinct a wounded animal shows when a hand reaches toward it too quick.
Kneeling at the basin’s edge, my fingers pushed against the stone that no longer remembered the feeling of warmth. Beneath my palm, I could feel it - faint, fragile threads of life struggling to remain clear. Not soil. Not earth. What lay between them. A memory of ground, but not the ground itself.
Lincoln stood several paces in front of us, the Chrono-Forge resting against his shoulder, its glow was steady and subdued. He was forging time again —
