Lira woke gasping, her body shivering though the air was still. The campfire had died sometime before dawn, leaving only faint coils of smoke rising into the gray morning haze. For a moment, she didn't remember where she was, only the echo of light behind her eyes, the echo of his heartbeat.
It had been so real.
She sat upright, scanning the camp. Around her, the survivors slept in scattered clusters, wrapped in scavenged blankets, their breaths shallow and uneven. The storm had passed hours ago, leaving the land half-buried under silt and ash. Every sound was swallowed by silence, the kind that didn't comfort but waited, listening.
Lira pressed a trembling hand to her chest. The pulse beneath her fingers wasn't steady. It jumped and faltered, like it was trying to follow a rhythm not her own.
Aiden's rhythm.
She remembered the flash, the feeling of standing somewhere vast, luminous, and cold. The image of glass-like roots and voices that weren't hers whispering through her blood. And then his face, flickering between light and shadow, reaching toward her before vanishing again.
She clenched her jaw, grounding herself in the taste of dust and smoke. "It wasn't a dream," she murmured.
Mira stirred beside her, a young scavenger barely sixteen. "What?"
"Nothing," Lira said quickly, forcing her voice to steady. "Go back to sleep."
But she couldn't. Not when the Dominion's presence still pulsed faintly in the earth, subtle, almost like the heartbeat of something buried deep below. She could feel it moving, faint waves of energy traveling through the ground toward the north.
The Dominion was awake. And so was Aiden.
Lira stood, brushing the grit from her coat. Her breath turned pale in the cold as she looked toward the horizon. The landscape stretched endlessly, jagged ridges of petrified terrain, the faint shimmer of ancient ruins beneath the ash. Somewhere beyond that horizon was the next storm front, already forming, its glow flickering faintly like lightning trapped behind smoke.
They had to move soon.
But before she turned away, she felt something else, a soft vibration in her left hand. The Dominion shard embedded in her gauntlet glowed faintly, pulsing once, twice, then fading.
It responded to her.
Or to him.
Lira closed her fingers around it, whispering to the wind, "I know you're still down there."
A long pause followed. Then, faintly, a warmth bloomed beneath her skin, just for a heartbeat.
A message without words.
Hold on.
Tears stung her eyes, sharp as grit. She swallowed them, turned back toward the camp, and began waking the others.
"Up," she said, her voice cutting through the chill. "We move in ten. The air's shifting."
Mira groaned, blinking sleep from her eyes. "Already?"
"Already," Lira said. "The Dominion's quiet, too quiet. That never lasts."
They gathered what little they had, scavenged rations, torn fabric for bandages, tools dull from overuse. The group moved slowly, their exhaustion visible in every motion, but they obeyed. They always obeyed her now.
When she looked at them, she didn't see followers. She saw remnants, of families, soldiers, wanderers who'd lost everything. They needed purpose, something to believe in.
And for now, she would be that purpose.
As they set off, the wind shifted, carrying with it a faint hum, a sound too low for most to notice. Lira felt it immediately, vibrating through her bones. It wasn't random. It was alive.
The Dominion was moving again.
She looked once more toward the buried ruins and whispered under her breath, "Stay with me, Aiden. Don't let it take you."
The hum deepened, echoing like a heartbeat beneath the soil.
Lira tightened her grip on the shard and began walking north, leading the survivors into the colorless horizon.
Somewhere beneath, the same rhythm answered her.