They felt it before they saw it.
A faint realignment in the city's deeper rhythm. Not a release. Not a collapse.
A reconsideration.
Devansh's awareness moved through Vayukshi's foundations, tracing a subtle change — a new relational tension where an absolute had once existed.
"Ira," he said quietly, "something is moving."
She exhaled slowly.
The constriction in her chest had not faded.
It had focused.
She withdrew her hand from the stone and stood.
The depression at the center of the chamber had not changed.
But the air above it had.
A faint distortion lingered there, barely visible — like the afterimage of something that had begun to be outlined.
Rehaan stepped closer, eyes narrowed. "That wasn't a door," he said.
"No," Ira replied softly. "It was… an allowance."
Devansh turned his gaze inward, then outward.
The city's older alignments had not broken.
But they had loosened.
Somewhere in the vastness of Vayukshi, a path that had once closed itself around her presence had… hesitated.
Not opened.
But waited.
Ira closed her eyes, listening.
She felt the sealed corridor.
Not open.
But thinner.
"I don't think I can take her out yet," she said quietly.
Rehaan swore under his breath.
"But," she continued, "I don't think the city will keep her in the same way."
Devansh studied her. "Explain."
"The agreement has shifted," she said. "It's no longer about containment. It's about… resolution."
She lifted her gaze.
"It doesn't know how to finish what it started," she said. "But it's beginning to let that question exist."
Silence held.
Then Devansh spoke.
"That means every alteration from here will not simply change paths," he said. "It will change outcomes."
She nodded.
"I know."
They stood together in the low chamber, the faint distortion between them like the ghost of something that might one day become a door.
Far above, in the upper reaches of Vayukshi, the sealed corridor remained closed.
But along its smooth stone surface, a thin line of warmth had begun to gather.
Not enough to open.
Enough to remember how.