CHAPTER ONE – WAKE
The room remained hushed—
not in sleep, but in the kind of quiet that settles after something has broken.
Not loudly.
Not all at once.
But in slow, subtle fractures that only those listening from inside could hear.
Zephryn sat at the edge of the bed, the folded scarf in his hands, the hum still burning low behind his ribs.
Bubbalor hadn't moved again.
Kaelen turned once in his sleep and muttered something about the gate.
Yolti's hand twitched as if catching a memory.
Selka lay perfectly still—her braid stretched across the pillow like a line no one dared cross.
Zephryn looked down at his fingers.
They were shaking.
Not from fear.
Not from cold.
But from the pressure of silence finally pressing back.
The dream had left something in him.
Not an image. Not a voice.
But a recognition.
Like he'd woken up with a word buried in his mouth
and didn't know how to say it out loud.
He placed the scarf beside him, stood, and walked to the window once more.
The rain had softened again.
A slow tap. A rhythm.
The hum was still there—beneath it all.
Low. Distant. But rising.
He didn't say anything.
Didn't whisper to the glass or call to the others.
He just stood there—
eyes on the mist that cloaked the Heartbloom Tree in the distance,
listening to the echo that would not leave.