The next morning, the sky was too quiet.
Kael stood at the edge of the path, the Spiral long behind them, the valley stretched ahead—vast, untouched, breathing.
It didn't welcome them.
It simply waited.
Aila adjusted the straps of her pack. "You didn't sleep."
Kael shook his head. "Didn't need to."
Oran approached with the others—villagers who had walked through the recursion and returned with quiet eyes.
"We're ready," he said.
Kael glanced back once. Toward the Spiral. Toward what he saw. Toward what he chose.
Then he stepped forward.
The valley was unlike the land they had known.
There were no ruins.
No glyphs.
No signs of Spiral's touch.
No signs of the old world at all.
Just tall grass, broken stone, and sky.
Hours passed without event. The group walked in long silence, scattered by distance but held together by intention.
Kael felt the land shifting beneath him—not physically, but emotionally. This place had memory.
But it wasn't theirs.
Not yet.
