Kora’s POV
The next few days passed like walking through a dream made of smoke and heat. The Ember Plains no longer felt like they wanted to devour us; instead, they watched. Every gust of wind that passed carried warmth instead of danger, every flicker of flame seemed to lean toward me, as though recognizing its kin.
But the deeper we went, the more uneasy everyone grew.
The others could feel it, even if they couldn’t explain it. The ground trembled every few hours, soft at first, then harder, as though something beneath the surface was stirring. The heat shimmered strangely, forming shapes that vanished when anyone looked too closely.
And then there were the whispers.
At first, I thought they were part of the wind, faint and harmless. But by the third night, I could make out words.
