Dawn in the crater was quieter than any morning since they had entered the crystal trees. Impressions faded at a human pace. The large column that had kept the bird overnight now stood empty. Kael checked his boots twice and declared them satisfactorily forgetful.
Hallis met them at the dome with a small, clear crystal tablet resting in her newly colored hands. “The Blight has returned something. A fragment it stored long before I became Keeper. It concerns the network you are already walking.”
The tablet held a map—not of land, but of pressure. Five points glowed in slow sequence. Three were familiar: Veythra, Harth, the Echo Hold. The fourth was the Glass Blight itself. The fifth lay far to the south-east, beyond any chart Nima carried, marked with a symbol none of them recognized: a c
