Chapter 31
It began with a child’s question.
“Why do we light the fires in a circle?”
Elira turned from the central flame, blinking against the smoke. The child, barefoot, ash-smudged, eyes too old for her face, waited beside Cyra, who gave a helpless shrug.
Elira knelt.
“Because fire spreads best when it’s shared.”
The girl tilted her head. “But wouldn’t it burn everything down?”
Elira smiled, soft and sad. “Only if we forget what we’re building.”
Rumors and Roots
By the second moon, Hollowfall had outgrown the hill.
Tents turned into lean-tos. Lean-tos into carved stone. The wild magic, the kind that clung to root and ruin, answered them not with defiance, but welcome.
Still, not everyone who came sought peace.
Scouts reported flickers of old banners at the northern ridge sig
