The wind over the Ashen Road died with the dawn.
A stillness spread across the horizon — the kind that comes when the world itself is listening. Even the faint hum beneath the ground quieted as though the land had exhaled its last breath.
Eryndor’s group had camped at the edge of the scorched plain, huddled near a ring of faintly glowing stones Aria had raised for protection. The glow pulsed with a slow rhythm, drawing power from the roots buried deep beneath the cracked soil.
Lirien was the first to speak. “They’ll move now,” she said softly. “The Guardians felt what happened yesterday. The test was theirs.”
Eryndor sat cross-legged near the stones, eyes closed, his staff resting across his knees. The faintest light radiated from his palms — the afterglow of whatever trial he had endu
