The wind changed.
Not in temperature, nor in scent—but in memory.
Jevan felt it first as he walked the ridge above the Vale. A moment of vertigo, a shiver along the edge of thought, as if something far older than breath had opened its eyes and remembered it once had lungs.
He turned toward the horizon—and saw nothing.
But in that nothing was a weight. Not a presence, not yet. A gaze.
It was watching them.
Watching her.
The girl stood by the reflection pool, now ringed with stones bearing the names of those newly remembered—Naru, Yren, Silent-Footfall, the Emberlord, and more. Dozens now. Hundreds, even. All learning to shape their own becoming.
She cupped water in her hands, watched it spill between her fingers, and whispered to the ripples:
"I know you're there."
The pool shivered.
The sky cracked.
But only softly.
No thunder. No rain. No voice.
Just acknowledgment.
The Firstborn had heard her.
And it was listening.
The Archivists had no name for it.
