The southern vale was a memory shrouded in living mist, where the hills breathed and the trees leaned in close, whispering of things older than stars. They rode with silence as their companion, four shadows cutting through the golden hush of nearing twilight—Rose at the front, her cloak drawn tight, her mind burning brighter than the blade at her hip.
No words passed between them for hours.
Not until the trees changed.
They didn’t grow taller or darker. They grew quieter—as if sound itself had been swallowed. No birds. No wind. Just breath and hoofbeat. And something beneath it all. A tension, stretched thin. Waiting.
Leo shifted in his saddle beside her, nostrils flaring. “This place... it doesn’t breathe like the rest of the world.”
“It remembers,” the Dragon Lord said. He rode behi
