The vibration does not disappear.
It sinks deeper.
Lunaya still feels the echo in her bones,
as if her body had memorized Erynd's pain and refused to let it go.
Each breath is too deep. Too full.
Kael walks ahead of her now.
Faster.
Lower.
He no longer looks back.
"We're leaving this place, he growls.
Now."
The forest is no longer the same.
The trees seem to lean toward them,
their roots protruding from the surface like raw nerves.
Even the birds have fallen silent.
Beastworld holds its breath, just as it does before a hunt.
Dravik brings up the rear.
His presence burns, deliberately contained.
"They've activated a lock, he says bluntly.
An ancient one."
Sahr stops abruptly.
"No."
Kael turns around, already ready to attack.
"What do you mean, 'no'?"
Sahr looks at the ground.
The dead leaves.
The shadows that no longer quite follow the light.
"It's not a lock.
It's a call."
Lunaya stops too.
Her heart skips a beat.
"...A call to whom?"
Sahr looks up.
"To what watches when the Guardians fail."
A sharp crack echoes through the forest.
Not a footstep.
Not an animal.
Something bigger.
Dravik freezes.
"They're crazy, he whispers.
They had no right to go this far."
Lunaya feels the silver-black thread suddenly tighten.
Not toward Erynd.
Toward the sky.
A pressure descends upon them, slow, crushing,
as if the world had just been stared at by something that never blinks.
Kael grabs Lunaya by the waist.
"Let's run."
They don't have time to argue.
The ground cracks open in the exact spot where they were standing a second earlier.
A gigantic rune, invisible until now, reveals itself beneath the earth,
pulsing with a dull light.
"They're marking the ground, Sahr whispers as he runs.
They're drawing a moving border."
Lunaya stumbles.
The pain in her chest explodes.
She falls
And this time, the world doesn't catch her.
She tumbles.
Not into emptiness.
Not into a vision.
Into something in between.
The noise muffles.
The colors wash away.
She feels her feet touch a smooth, cold,
almost liquid ground beneath her skin.
"Lunaya?"
Kael's voice is distant. Distorted.
In front of her, the air ripples.
Then
A silhouette appears.
Not Erynd.
Something else.
A faceless, winged form,
sculpted from a material too dark to be a shadow.
Around it, symbols float like unfinished thoughts.
"Resonant," says the thing, without a mouth.
The voice does not enter through her ears.
It is imprinted directly on her mind.
"You have touched a forbidden thread."
Lunaya takes a step back.
"I didn't call you."
"Yes, you did."
The presence approaches.
"Every time you refuse to let go of a broken name... you call us."
Her heart pounds.
"Where is Erynd?"
Silence.
Then:
"Still alive.
Still useful."
Anger flashes through Lunaya.
"You have no right."
The thing bows slightly.
"There are no rights in the weave.
Only balance."
She feels the thread tighten until it hurts.
"Then you'll have to reckon with me," she says, her voice trembling but firm.
The figure pauses.
Something, for the first time, hesitates.
"You weren't supposed to speak like that."
"I wasn't supposed to exist here either."
The world trembles.
A cry suddenly rings out
Kael.
"LUNAYA!"
The presence recoils abruptly,
as if pushed back by an outside force.
"They're coming," she whispers.
"And this time, Resonant..."
Space cracks.
"You won't be able to save them all."
The forest spits her out violently.
Lunaya collapses into Kael's arms, gasping for breath.
Dravik is on his knees, one hand against the ground,
the other clenched as if holding something invisible.
Sahr stares at the spot where she disappeared.
"It wasn't the Guardians, he says slowly.
It was worse."
Kael pulls Lunaya close, his voice broken:
"What did you see?"
Lunaya closes her eyes.
"What happens when they can no longer control the consequences."
A low rumble rolls in the distance.
Not draconic.
Not lupine.
Something ancient is awakening.
And this time,
the whole world is affected.