Echoes Beneath the City
The song of the waking city rose behind them, a rough, uncertain melody stitched from a thousand broken voices. Lanterns flickered to life along the crumbling streets. Flowers pushed through ancient stones. For the first time in living memory, Willowdeep — the forgotten city — breathed.
But Aelir felt the warning still pulsing in their chest, through the shard of bark that had guided them here.
This was only the surface.
Something deeper stirred beneath the awakening.
"Lira," Aelir said, voice low. "There's more."
She met their gaze, her own heart still pounding with the aftershocks of battle.
"You feel it too?"
Aelir nodded. The ground under their feet thrummed with it — a slow, patient heartbeat, older than the Silencers, older than the Dominion that had c
