They moved slow and low through the trees. The moon had sunk behind a bank of cloud, and the forest kept its breath. Selene rode on a makeshift bed slung between two poles. She looked smaller than they expected, as if the dark had taken more of her weight than it should. Her arms lay loose. Her face was pale. She did not speak.
The mill was old and quiet. The wheel had long since stopped, and moss wrapped the stone like a tired blanket. Kael set the planks in the doorway and pushed a crate against the hinges. Mira swept a thin sheet of ice along the window frames to blur shapes from outside. Elira kept the Wind Veil alive, a low hum at her feet that ate noise and smell. They did not want anyone following them.
Mira kneeled beside Selene and checked her pulse. "Strong, but slow," she said. Her breath fogged in the cold air. "Her magic is shallow, but it's strange—cold in a way I have not seen." She rubbed Selene's wrist with a careful hand. The girl's fingers twitched, like small leaves.
Selene's eyes fluttered open. For a moment they were blank and lost. Then she whispered, words that came like dust on the tongue. "Dust Ruin," she said. "The door… the sound… it called me."
Elira sat very still. The name meant nothing to her, but the way Selene said it made the hair on her arm stand up. Kael's jaw tightened. "We need to keep her warm," he said. "And stay close."
They arranged a small fire in the old iron hearth. The flame was narrow and careful—no big blaze, only a ribbon of light. Mira wrapped a blanket around Selene and set a bowl of hot broth near her lips. Kael placed two Pulse Vault rings in the dirt at the door, tiny devices that would shock and slow anyone who stepped too close. Elira kept the pendant at her throat pressed under her shirt, feeling its faint pulse like a second heartbeat.
Hour by hour the mill grew quieter. They spoke in fragments, low as if not to wake something sleeping in the walls. Mira wrote notes and rubbed her hands to keep warm. Kael checked the doors and the path back into the trees. Elira walked the small circle around the bed and listened to Lumeveil's small presence at her side—a soft, cool whisper that settled in her bones more than her ears.
"Is she safe?" Mira asked once, hardly above a breath.
"For now," Elira answered. She did not say she did not know what would happen when the dark part of the world woke. She did not say she felt the faint tug of shadow in the pendant. Lumeveil's voice was only a slight pressure at her palm: Keep the dark sleeping. Keep the dark sleeping.
The night drew long. Each of them took a turn by the bed. At first they stayed watchful. After hours of low talk and the small warmth of the fire, the minutes loosened. Kael's head drooped against his shoulder. Mira's notes fell from her lap. Elira sat with Lumeveil pressed to her palm, and for a moment, when her eyes closed, she pictured Rho's small face and the baker's warm hands. The next breath took her under.
When the light came it was a thin silver line on the trees. Elira woke to the mill smelling of ash and damp wool. She reached for Selene—and the bed was empty.
Panic moved quick and bright through them. Kael was on his feet before she finished thinking. "Tracks?" he asked.
Mira ran to the doorway and spread a small water mirror across the threshold. The glass showed only fog and a lane of very thin marks in the dew—no clear foot prints, only a faint pull like something had slid along the ground. "No steps," she said. Her voice was tight. "As if she flew or the ground was lifted."
Elira felt the pendant against her chest, warm and then cold in a single pulse. She held it up. The Locator hummed and showed a faint, wavering glow toward the north ridge, then faded. "She headed that way," Elira said. "We go."
They followed the thin marks along the river, past the broken cart and the field of old, bent oats. The morning had a weight to it, heavy with wet. The trees leaned together like people keeping a secret. After ten minutes of walking, the tracks stopped at the base of a low hill. The slope opened to a small rise that gave a good view of the ruined tower. From the ridge they could see the castle silhouette, gray and patient, and the long path of river that cut the plain like a wound.
Selene stood at the top of the rise. She faced away from them, toward the east where the prairies opened. Frost crawled at her boots in a thin, bright line, and her hands were raised as if to hold something fragile. Her hair moved though there was no wind. For a moment she looked like the sleep itself—quiet, small.
They called to her. Kael's voice was rough with fear. Mira's tone was a careful plea. Elira's words came out like a blade. "Selene! Come down!"
She turned slowly. Her face was not empty now but very calm, and the eyes met them with a light like ice under moon. When she spoke, it was not a murmur. It was clear, slow, and full.
"You should not have brought me from my place," she said. "You do not know the songs that live under dust."
Elira took a step forward. "We brought you out from chains. We are friends. Put your hands down."
Selene's lips curved—not a smile, but something like the settling of snow. She lifted one hand and the air grew colder, a sound like ice scraping on stone. The frost at her boots spidered outward and filled the grass in bright, rotten patterns.
Mira stepped forward a breath, but Kael grabbed her sleeve. "Wait," he said. "Do not close with her. We do not know—"
Selene's voice rose, and each word held a small, hard music. "Frost Collision."