The fire was nearly out.
Ash smoldered in soft breaths as the forest breathed around them, whispering low in the dark. Night wrapped the clearing like a held breath—too still, too quiet. Alex slept lightly, curled near the embers, his hand always a heartbeat from his blade. The Dragon Lord leaned against a half-crumbled pillar, arms crossed, eyes closed but mind sharp. Even in stillness, he was listening—to the groan of tree roots, the sigh of wind in stone, the earth’s hum that now pulsed like a warning.
Rose sat apart, her back to a moss-worn statue whose name had long been erased by time. She watched the stars where they cut through the canopy above, scattered like the pieces of a story she hadn’t finished reading. The silence pressed in around her—not peaceful, but expectant.
And Pi
