The rains came late that year, and with them, the wind that carried whispers of distant lands. The orchard had learned to listen. Tian Shen had taught it how.
He stood beneath the Dream Tree, now tall and resplendent with ribbons of blossoms that shed faint light in the dusk. Its hum was deeper, layered with voices now—Feng Yin's laugh, the lullabies sung by mothers who had passed through, and the gentle tremors of growth.
The earth beneath it had become sacred, not because it demanded reverence, but because it had offered refuge.
That morning, Tian Shen had awakened with a strange stillness in his bones. Not pain, exactly. More like a whisper in his marrow, asking him to listen. The orchard rustled with the same quiet curiosity. Something approached.
