The Curation forces do not arrive with banners.
They arrive with order.
At first, it’s only a tremor in the sky.
No lightning.
No storm front.
No sound that carries like thunder.
Just a tightening in the air, as if the world itself has been pressed between two palms and told to be still.
Every wolf on the outer ring rises at once.
Not snarling.
Not howling.
Listening.
Kael’s hand finds mine on the western battlement.
“They’ve left the silence zones,” he says quietly.
“How many?”
“All of them.”
The shadow coils like cold smoke along my spine.
Memory hunters never march alone.
By midday, the horizon changes.
Not with dust clouds or advancing armies.
With geometry.
Thin vertical lines appear miles away across the plains—rectangular silhouettes that glide forward without di
