The first stone sits where the land feels oldest.
Not highest.
Not grandest.
Just oldest.
The coven built their watchpost here because the air hums differently, thin and heavy at once, like it remembers things the sky has forgotten. The lattice beneath the earth knots here, braids of power crossing and recrossing like veins around a heart.
Aurora stands at the center of it.
And for the first time since the Mark awakened
She is afraid.
Not of the Devourer.
Not of war.
Not of failure.
But of the moment she will look at Kade and feel
Nothing.
The others keep their distance.
Selene and Mara form the outer circle, runes glowing soft silver around the perimeter. Kael stands like a sentinel at the treeline, eyes scanning for movement that shouldn't exist. Darius watches from shadow, hands folded behind his back, as if this were another political battle and not the unraveling of a soul-thread.
Kade stands in front of Aurora.
