The valley had grown beyond anything they once imagined.
Spiral paths now stretched far past the old flame-trees, weaving through rivers, curling around cliffs, reaching for places untouched even by the oldest maps.
It was beautiful.
It was dangerous.
Because not all places remembered peace the way they did.
And so Kaelen, standing beneath the ancient flame tree as the dusk wind swept his hair back from his forehead, made a decision. One he had been carrying quietly for many moons.
They needed watchers.
Not warriors, not enforcers—
Watchers who could sense trouble before it had teeth.
Who could see the tremble of imbalance before it cracked the soil.
Not fighters.
Listeners.
He knelt on the soft earth and drew three lines in the dust: one reaching land, one reaching water, one reaching sky. And at the heart of them, a spiral so small it could barely be seen.
Around him, a circle of young wolves and tideborn and rootweavers waited, holding their breath.
