Night in Elarwyn should have been the most peaceful rest Kancil had ever experienced. After weeks of living as a hunted fugitive, breathing the sulfur-choked air of the Lamenting Woods, and nearly losing his life in the suffocating, lightless corridors of the Terragard bunkers, the bed in the Elarwyn guesthouse felt like a portal to paradise. The mattress was miraculously soft, woven from elastic fibers that cradled his body; the pillows smelled of fresh mint leaves, and his stomach was comfortably heavy with the savory, honey-wood spices of the Mana-Ox steak he had devoured earlier.
But at exactly two o'clock in the morning, while the entire city slept in the emerald embrace of the World Tree's boughs, Kancil's eyes snapped open.
He didn't wake up because of an explosion. He wasn't jolted awake by a high-frequency alarm from Dola's sensors. He woke up because of something far more subtle: a feeling. A primal, visceral itch at the base of his skull that he couldn't ignore.
