The silence of the wilds was not a true silence. It was a tapestry of unfamiliar sounds, each one a needle pricking at Elian's heightened senses. The wind through the skeletal branches of thorn-trees carried a low, moaning harmony that set his teeth on edge. The scuttling of unseen creatures in the undergrowth was a percussive, skittering rhythm that spoke of hunger and sharp claws. This was not the composed, nurturing resonance of The Wellspring; this was a world of raw, undirected power, a symphony playing without a conductor, and every note felt like a potential threat.
They had been traveling for three days, pushing eastward with a grim, single-minded focus. The comfortable, rolling hills of their homeland had given way to a cracked and broken badland of rust-colored stone and stubborn, grey-green scrub. The air grew thinner, colder. Each breath was a small effort.
