The Crescent Moon Pack was a blaze of color beneath the high sun. Silk and satin flashed beautifully as women drifted along the narrow lanes, their laughter and chatter stitching the morning into a careless fabric art. The seamstress’s dresses had turned the pack into a marketplace of prettiness; ribbons bounced, new hems bloomed with each step, and the air smelled faintly of fresh stitches and lavender. But as always one figure stood apart from the rest.
Lyra… She walked quietly down the narrow path, her plain blue dress brushing her ankles as the sun cast a soft shimmer on her red hair. Her head was slightly bowed, her mind far away… fixed on a single destination: the Eastern Wall. The place where the hidden passage lay beneath stone and earth. That was where her mission began.
She wea
