The silence didn’t last.
It never did.
A low, distorted hum began to seep into the air—faint at first, like a vibration carried through the bones of the world rather than through sound.
Emily felt it before she heard it.
Her chest tightened.
“…Do you feel that?” she asked quietly.
Kael’s head tilted slightly, as if tuning into something invisible.
“Yes.”
Theodore didn’t answer.
He was already moving.
One step forward.
Then another.
His gaze locked onto the horizon—specifically the fractured lines in the ground that stretched outward like scars.
The hum grew stronger.
Warmer.
Wrong.
Emily’s power stirred in response, light flickering beneath her skin in uneven pulses.
She frowned. “It’s… reacting.”
“Everything here reacts,” Kael said. “The question is what it reacts to.”
