The air around us was too still. Too alive.
The silver light didn’t fade—it pulsed like a living thing, crawling across the ground and curling up Thorn’s legs until it reached his chest. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t fight it. Just stood there, letting it wrap him like armor.
I wanted to move, to grab him, to drag him back before whatever this was took more than it already had. But something in the way he stood—steady, unblinking—made the words die in my throat.
“Thorn,” I said softly, stepping closer. “Look at me.”
He did. For one heartbeat, I saw him—the man beneath the fire, the warmth beneath the ruin. But then his eyes shifted, gold bleeding into silver, and my breath caught.
“Do you feel that?” he murmured. “The world’s heartbeat. It’s calling.”
Mira’s voice trembled. “That’s not th
