By midday, the sky had shifted to a pale gray, the sun struggling to burn through the overcast haze. Kazi pulled her cloak tighter as a cool breeze rolled across the open grassland. The plains had gradually given way to rolling hills and crooked trees, their twisted branches reaching like claws toward the sky.
Ahead, a small settlement emerged on the horizon; quiet, unassuming, and surrounded by low stone walls crumbling with age.
Rhazir stopped and checked the pulse disc again.
"The resonance trace leads here," he said, tapping the blinking point on the scanner's display. "This is Ayenro."
Kazi narrowed her eyes, scanning the village's perimeter. "Doesn't look like much."
"It's not," Rhazir replied. "Barely a trading post. But the signal here is looks recent… strong."
Dakarai stepped beside her, arms crossed. "You sure it's not just leftover ambient energy? Could be someone passed through, not someone staying."
Rhazir gave a slight nod, neither confirming nor denying. "We'll find out."
They approached the village cautiously.
The main road curved through the center, cracked and faded with time. Most of the buildings were low, built from uneven stone and patchwork wood. A few scattered townsfolk eyed them as they entered, pausing their tasks but saying nothing. No guards, no hustle. Just a dull, watchful silence.
According to Rhazir's scanner, this resonance pulse had originated from the outskirts of Nkwanta Hollow and moved steadily northeast, ending here, in Ayenro.
Ayenro felt like it was waiting for something.
Or recovering from something it couldn't name.
They made their way to the central square, where a small, unused fountain trickled with water stained by rust and moss. Rhazir paused, the scanner in his hand pulsing brighter now. Kazi leaned in over his shoulder.
"Right here?"
"The signal was centered here at some point," he said. "Possibly within the last forty-eight hours."
Dakarai circled the square slowly, his hand trailing the edge of the fountain's stone lip.
"No signs of battle. No scorch marks. Nothing to suggest an awakening."
"Maybe it was subtle," Rhazir suggested.
Or maybe… someone didn't want to be found.
Kazi walked a wide circle around the square, eyes sharp. She watched the people; a merchant stacking grain sacks near a storage hut, a woman drawing water from a well, a child chasing a goat through the alleyway. No one made eye contact for long. No one greeted them.
She stopped beside Dakarai.
"Something's wrong," she said softly.
"Yeah. I feel it too."
They didn't say Luma's name.
They didn't have to.
The silence here wasn't just the absence of sound.
It was the echo of something that had already passed through.
By late afternoon, they had spoken with several locals, all polite but gave vague responses. No one recalled anything strange. No surges of power. No visitors. No trouble.
But when they asked if anyone had gone missing recently…
The air always seemed to shift.
A shopkeeper mentioned that his assistant had left town unexpectedly a few days ago.
"He's got family in the next village," he stated with a shrug, but his voice was thin, and he wouldn't meet Dakarai's gaze.
Later, a farmer shared something stranger.
"A friend of mine has a niece from Nkwanta Hollow. She's been having nightmares, swears she saw a woman with glowing hands outside her window."
He rubbed the back of his neck, avoiding Kazi's eyes. "Probably just a dream, right?"
Kazi had her doubts.
She stepped away from the group and wandered toward the edge of the village. A stretch of land opened into a sparse grove of crooked trees. The wind hissed softly through the branches.
There, on a small boulder, faint and nearly gone, was the charred outline of a boot print.
It was surrounded by thin, curved burn marks in the dirt made by something… different.
Wilder.
Less stable.
"Kazi," Dakarai called. "You find anything?"
She looked over her shoulder and nodded. "Someone was here."
She crouched beside the mark, placing her hand just above the scorched earth. Her Mark responded instantly, a flicker of heat in her palm, subtle but real.
Resonance.
Not strong anymore, but unmistakable.
Whoever left it… had done so recently.
And in a hurry.
Back at the center of town, Rhazir stood with his arms folded, the scanner still active.
"This may have been a dead lead," he said as she returned.
Kazi stared at him for a long moment.
"No," she said. "It wasn't dead."
She explained what she found at the edge of town, the footprint, , the burn outline.
Rhazir listened without interruption, then finally offered a slow nod. "Then we move quickly. Whoever was here, they've gone."
Kazi didn't like the tone of his voice.
Too calm.
Too… practiced.
As if he already knew what they'd find, or what they wouldn't.
That night, the group camped just outside the village under a wide acacia tree. The wind blew soft through the tall grass, and the stars above flickered behind scattered clouds.
Kazi sat by the fire, poking the embers with a stick. Dakarai lay nearby, watching the sky.
"She's been here," Kazi said quietly.
Dakarai didn't look at her. "Luma?"
"Or someone like her."
"Or someone she's watching," he added. "Maybe the bearer was here… and she scared them off."
"Or took them," Kazi said.
Dakarai didn't respond.
The fire popped gently.
After a long silence, Kazi stood and walked away from the fire. She found Rhazir sitting alone, cross-legged with his scanner beside him, eyes closed.
"You seem disappointed," she said.
"I'm always learning," he replied.
She crossed her arms. "You led us here. You said the signal was strong."
"It was."
"But no one's here."
"Not anymore."
She studied him.
"Are we chasing ghosts, Rhazir?"
His eyes opened slowly.
"We're chasing resonance," he said. "Sometimes it echoes. Sometimes it vanishes. And sometimes… it hides."
She didn't know whether to believe him.
And that uncertainty sat like a weight between them.
Elsewhere, deep in the woods bordering the next region, a whisper of mist curled through the trees.
A figure stepped forward into the moonlight.
Luma.
Her eyes glowed faintly as she stared back in the direction of Ayenro. Her Mark pulsed once, acknowledging what had just passed.
"They're getting close," she murmured.
But not close enough.