John woke to the quiet sound of wind sliding across stone.
For a few seconds, he didn't move. He just lay there on the raised platform inside his cave, watching thin morning light creep slowly across the floor. Dust floated in the beam near the entrance. The faint glow from a few exposed beast cores shimmered from the corner of his hoard, dim but steady.
Yesterday still lingered in his thoughts.
Not the north itself — not the distant tremor he'd felt, or the weight in the air beyond his territory.
It was the realization that his world was bigger than he'd been treating it.
He stretched slowly, claws scraping faint lines into the stone. His wings unfolded halfway before settling back against his sides.
"The south," he murmured quietly.
He had been thinking about it since yesterday.
North was raw and open — mountains and wide skies and something powerful enough to shake the horizon. That direction would matter later. He could feel it.
But south… south was different.
