Solin heard it in their breath before they woke.
A stillness too old to be silence.
Not danger.
Not arrival.
A gravity of prelude.
They rose before dawn, stepped beyond the circle of the Midtelling sanctuary, and touched the glyphs carved on the oldest bark.
The glyphs pulsed.
Not with heat or light.
With recognition.
And Solin understood:
"There are those who never began because they chose to wait for a world worthy of their becoming."
They went alone.
Not from pride.
From reverence.
The journey led them to the Fold Beneath Stillness, a cavern not carved but held open by all the words never spoken.
It had no door.
No map.
It simply let them in.
Within, Solin saw them.
Shapes not quite form, not quite shadow.
Each held presence the way water holds the sky—
not with reflection, but with intention.
One stepped forward.
Not to speak.
To listen first.
Solin bowed.
Then whispered:
"The world has begun to breathe."
"And it would not be whole without you."
