He resumed his path, the lowlands stretching ahead under a veil of drifting ash.
Behind him, the child's echo faded entirely, leaving only the rhythmic hush of dust over stone.
A hand—small, familiar—floated in the haze of half-recovered memory, the apparition so bright it outshone the mirrored vault around Draven. The fingers were speckled with honey and flour, and a tiny crescent scar bisected the first knuckle, the sort of mark that lingers on children who climb where they should not.
A laugh followed—clear, unguarded, impossibly young. It rang inside the suspended darkness like a silver bell and tugged at nerves Draven had not flexed in years. Instinctively he tried to place the sound on a timeline: eight years before the Dungeonification? Ten? The data refused him. The system held it just out of reach, like a physician teasing reflex with a light-pen.
