The ground did not stop trembling when Aurelia left the trial grounds.
It followed her.
Not as a violent quake, not as something obvious enough to send the pack into open panic—but as a persistent, low vibration that settled beneath stone and soil alike. It pulsed in slow intervals, like a heartbeat too deep to hear but impossible to ignore.
Aurelia felt it with every step.
She and Mira moved through the corridors in tense silence, their footsteps echoing against walls that suddenly felt thinner, older, as if the weight of the territory above them had shifted. Torches flickered more violently than they should have, flames bending in invisible currents.
Mira glanced around uneasily. "It's getting stronger."
Aurelia nodded. "It's closer."
They reached Aurelia's quarters just as another tremor rolled through the floor, subtle but unmistakable. Dust sifted down from the ceiling in fine, glittering threads.
