The dog carried her up the long slope of the island with an ease Sam could not help but envy.
Its paws struck the snow in a steady rhythm, sinking only slightly before pushing onward again, its thick body moving beneath her with surprising strength. Sam clung to its fur with both mittened hands, her small frame bouncing awkwardly with every stride. Neo rested warm in her right mitten, its little pulse answering the stranger rhythm inside her chest.
The other two dogs ran on either side of her, sometimes flanking her like guards, sometimes bounding ahead and circling back with their tongues out and tails high. Behind them, far down the slope, the hunters followed as dark, struggling shapes against the white. They were strong men, used to distance and cold, but they were still burdened with packs, spears, tools, hunger, and exhaustion. The dogs moved as if the island belonged to them. The hunters moved as if the island was trying to kill them.
Sam looked back once, saw the five men trailing behind, and then quickly faced forward again as the dog beneath her pushed higher.
Ahead, the highest rise of Meighen Island waited beneath the pale Arctic sky.
And there, half-buried in snow, stood the stone circle.
The sight of it made something tighten in Sam's chest.
The twelve monoliths rose out of the white like dark teeth, their upper halves exposed to wind and frost while their bases were swallowed by snow. At their center lay the broad circular platform where she had first landed, now hidden under a smooth white layer as if the island had tried to bury all evidence of what had happened there.
For a moment, relief came over her so strongly she almost forgot to be afraid.
"Yes," she whispered. "Okay. Good. We made it."
The dog slowed near the edge of the ring, and Sam slid off its back with very little dignity, landing in the snow with a soft thump before pushing herself upright. The dogs sniffed around the outer stones, curious but not alarmed, while she stood there looking at the place that had brought her into this world.
Or this time.
Or whatever this was.
That thought had been bothering her more and more. The hunters behind her were not modern. They had no metal, no cloth she recognized, no sleds, no tools that made sense for any world she knew. They looked like people from the deep past, rough and hungry and wrapped in furs. If they were real—and they certainly seemed real—then Sam had not only been thrown across space. She may have been thrown across time.
The angel baby's words returned to her again, something about, "The one who goes to the stars with them."
Sam looked at the twelve stones, then at the snow-covered platform beneath her feet.
"What does that even mean?" she muttered.
Was she supposed to build something? Lead someone? Open something? Was this place a portal? A machine? A shrine? Could it take her home? Could it explain why she was a baby girl in a bunny suit on an Arctic island with magic rocks and prehistoric hunters chasing after her like she was a tiny lost goddess?
Her jaw tightened.
"Alright," she said, mostly to herself. "Let's try to figure this out."
She walked to the nearest standing stone and brushed snow away from its lower surface. Her mitten cleared a small patch of dark rock, revealing only rough stone and shallow, soot-darkened grooves too worn to understand. She stretched higher, then higher still, but it was useless. The monolith towered above her, and even standing on tiptoe she could barely reach the lowest part of it.
She stepped back and stared upward.
The carvings, if they were carvings, climbed far beyond her reach.
"Of course," she sighed. "Because why would anything be baby-accessible?"
The dogs sniffed at the stone, sneezed, and moved on. They did not seem frightened by the place. They did not bow, whine, or act like they had found anything sacred. To them, the stone circle seemed to be nothing more than another cold, snow-covered part of the island.
Sam turned toward the center.
The platform was buried, but not deeply. She began kicking at the snow with her padded feet, then crouched and swept it aside with both mittens. The dogs, apparently deciding this was a game, joined in at once. Their paws tore into the snow and sent white powder flying in every direction. One of them shoved its nose into the cleared patch and snorted loudly, while another dug with such enthusiasm that Sam had to shuffle away before being buried.
For a while, all they found was stone.
Smooth, dark, cold stone.
Sam kept clearing anyway, uncovering faint grooves and lines running beneath the snow. At first they looked random, like cracks left by age and weather, but as more of the surface appeared, she saw they had been carved with purpose. The lines ran outward from the middle of the disc in thin, careful paths.
Still, nothing happened. There was no voice, no magical portal, no divine explanation, or even an angel baby appearing with that smug little face to explain why her life had become a cosmic joke.
Sam sat back on her heels, breathing lightly.
"Okay," she said. "I'm here. Now what?"
Then as if to answer her, Neo pulsed in her right mitten, and she raised a little brow.
It was not the usual warm beat she had grown used to. This pulse was sharper, more focused, and it carried with it a strange pull that seemed to pass through her hand and into her chest. Not forceful. Not commanding. More like a quiet insistence.
Her right hand turned toward the center of the platform.
Sam stared at it.
"…Neo, what is it?"
The Lightstone pulsed again and the pull became clearer. It wanted the center, or the center wanted it.
Sam looked down at the cleared patch of stone, and suddenly she knew where she was standing. This was the place. The exact place where she had fallen from the beam of light, where the Sun had dropped her into the world and left her crying beneath the snow.
Her mouth went dry.
"You're a key," she whispered. "Aren't you?"
Neo answered with warmth.
Sam gave a small, nervous laugh.
"Right. Amazing," Sam muttered. "I accidentally made the key to the ancient god-circle. Totally normal."
Getting Neo out of her mitten was not graceful. The stone was tucked deep inside the right sleeve of her bunny suit, held close against her palm for warmth, and her hands were too small and clumsy to simply pull it free. She had to pinch the outside of the mitten with her left hand, drag the fabric down over her wrist, and awkwardly work Neo back toward the opening inch by inch until the little crystal finally slipped loose into both of her mittened hands.
It rested there, pale and glasslike, with its small white core beating quietly inside it.
The cold pressed in at once, but Neo pushed it back just enough.
At the center of the platform, beneath the snow she and the dogs had cleared away, lay a carved circle surrounded by faint rays. It looked almost like a sun, though the lines were worn thin by time, softened until they seemed less carved than remembered by the stone itself.
Sam stared at it for a long moment.
Then, carefully, she brushed away the last loose powder and placed Neo at the exact center.
Nothing happened at first.
The dogs sniffed around her. One pawed at the snow. Another shook frost from its muzzle. Far below, the hunters were still climbing, slow dark shapes against the white slope.
Then Neo pulsed.
The pulse passed into the stone.
A thin white glow seeped outward through the carved circle, weak at first, barely brighter than moonlight under ice. It did not blaze. It did not explode. Neo was still small, still young, still only a little thing she had made while half-dead in a cave, and whatever power it gave was fragile. Yet the circle took that fragile light and carried it, spreading it through old grooves hidden beneath the snow.
The snow did not vanish all at once. It softened slowly, collapsing inward over the glowing lines, turning first to wet slush and then to mist, causing steam to rise in pale veils around Sam's knees.
The dogs backed away with uncertain barks, then stopped at the edge of the platform, ears raised, noses twitching. They seemed to see only part of it, or perhaps only felt the warmth, but after the first fright they grew calmer. One lowered itself onto its belly, chin close to the warming stone, as if the ancient revelation beneath its paws existed mainly to make the ground more comfortable.
Sam did not move.
The light from Neo crept farther through the ancient platform, thin and pale as veins beneath skin. It passed through grooves that had slept under snow and age, and wherever it touched, the stone remembered itself. Lines brightened. Circles joined. Old carvings filled with silver-white fire.
Then the light reached the first standing stone and the monolith woke.
Snow slid from its blackened face in wet sheets, hissing softly as it melted. Beneath it, the stone circle revealed its first image.
Sam expected words, but She got none.
Only a single light.
It was carved at the center of the stone, round and simple, shining alone in the dark. There was no land beneath it, no sky above it, no stars around it. Just the light and the emptiness.
Sam stared.
And somehow, without knowing why, she understood the first line of the story.
In the beginning, there was only light.
The thought passed through her, too solemn for her own voice.
"…okay," she whispered. "So we're doing creation myth stuff now."
Before she could decide whether that was terrifying or just annoying, the second stone lit.
Again the snow fell away, and again the carvings appeared.
The same light stood at the center, but now it was no longer alone. Around it stood eight angelic beings, tall and graceful, four shaped like men and four shaped like women. They held hands in a perfect circle around the light, their wings spread outward and touching at the tips, as if each one completed the others.
There was balance in them.
Strength and gentleness.
Stillness and motion.
Judgment and mercy.
Or at least, that was what the carving seemed to be trying to say. Sam had no idea how she knew that, and she did not like it.
The eight stood united around the light.
And it was good.
Sam squinted.
No baby angel.
No chubby cheeks. No smug little divine toddler. No annoying face carved into the holy record of existence.
That seemed suspicious.
"You'd think he'd put himself in here," she muttered. "Feels like the type."
The third stone woke.
Here, the light had risen high above the carving like a sun. Beneath it, emptiness had become land. A great paradise unfolded under the shining sphere: white shores of sand, wide fields of grass, rivers like silver threads, trees heavy with fruit, flowers, animals, and shapes Sam could not name. The eight great angels had descended into it, wandering across the new world as if discovering touch, color, water, wind, and life for the first time.
Where the light shone, the land lived.
Where it touched, paradise grew.
Sam's breath caught despite herself.
It was beautiful.
Too beautiful, honestly. The kind of beautiful that made her immediately suspicious because nothing that perfect ever lasted.
"So that's their home," she murmured. "Heaven? Or… pre-Heaven?"
The fourth stone answered.
A tower rose at the center of paradise.
The city around it was small at first, almost delicate. White walls. Golden bridges. Simple roads. Graceful structures gathered in a ring around one impossible tower that climbed toward the clouds. At its peak rested a crystal of light, bright and steady, shining down over the land like a second sun.
But it was not the first light.
Sam saw that clearly. The original light still hung above the whole scene, distant and watchful. The tower's crystal was lower, made within creation rather than before it.
And from that tower's light, smaller winged beings began to appear.
Lesser angels.
Thousands of them, maybe more, flowing into the new city like sparks from a flame.
And so the tower of light was raised in the heart of paradise, and from it came the people of Heaven.
Sam swallowed.
"Right. Angel city. Tower. Lesser angels. Got it."
She absolutely did not have it.
The fifth stone lit more slowly.
The city had grown.
Buildings spread across the paradise, and the lesser angels filled it with movement. They built, flew, gathered, and lived beneath the tower's glow. The eight greater angels stood above them like rulers, guardians, or pillars holding the whole thing together.
But the first light was gone.
Sam stared at the top of the stone.
There was no sun-like sphere in the sky now. No original light watching over paradise. Only the tower remained, shining in its place.
The light had created too much, perhaps.
Or spent too much.
Or withdrawn.
Sam did not know.
But in the absence of that first light, one of the eight angels turned away.
A tall, slender male figure stood at the edge of paradise, facing the blackness beyond its shores. His wings were long and narrow. His head was lifted, not in fear, but in searching. Behind him, the other seven watched.
They did not stop him.
Or maybe they could not.
And so one left paradise and went into the void, seeking what lay beyond the light.
Sam frowned deeply.
"That's never a good sign."
The sixth stone flared.
The one who had left had returned.
But he was changed.
The carving showed him standing once more in paradise, taller and darker than before, his wings sharper, his posture twisted by something that looked like rage. At the top of the Tower of Light, he faced another of the great angels — the largest and strongest of them all, broad and armored, carrying a sword and shield.
A duel was carved there.
Not a sparring match.
Not a disagreement.
A betrayal.
The tower shook beneath them. Lesser angels watched from below in terror. The seven great angels stood apart, unable or unwilling to intervene. Then, above them all, the first light returned.
It shone down upon the tower.
Upon the duel.
Upon the rebel.
Judgment.
Sam felt the word before she thought it.
The strong angel struck the slender one down. The rebel fell from the tower, and the light marked him as he fell. Then the strongest angel descended upon him, seized his wings, and tore them from his back.
Sam winced.
"Oh, that's… harsh."
The story continued across the same stone. The wingless angel was cast out into the wilderness beyond the city, beyond the tower, beyond the safe heart of paradise. Yet he did not vanish. At the edge of the white shores, he found two lesser female angels and drew them after him into the void.
Whether they followed willingly, or were tricked, or were taken, Sam could not tell.
The carving did not explain.
It only showed them leaving.
The seventh stone woke, and the warmth beneath Sam's feet seemed to fade.
Here, no paradise remained.
A dark realm had been made in the void.
Mountains rose like broken teeth. Volcanoes raged. Rivers of fire crawled through black stone. A fortress stood at the center of it all, vast and cruel, and beneath that fortress the world descended into layers.
Nine layers.
Down and down they went, through gates, pits, chains, caverns, fire, ash, monsters, and shadow.
At the deepest point sat the wingless angel.
No longer graceful.
No longer bright.
Around him gathered creatures that had not been touched by paradise's light. Twisted shapes. Horned things. Winged beasts. Crawling forms. Beings made from malice and hunger, born from something that hated the world simply because it existed without kneeling to him.
Near the bottom, Sam saw the two angels who had followed him.
They were trapped.
Or changed.
Or both.
She could not tell.
And so in the void was made another realm, not of light, but of hatred, fire, and rage.
Sam's mouth went dry.
"…Hell," she whispered. "Yeah. That tracks."
The eighth stone lit like a command.
The seven remaining great angels had gathered a host.
Heaven's armies filled the carving, rank after rank of winged beings armed with swords, spears, shields, bows, and strange weapons that looked more symbolic than practical. At their front stood the strongest angel, the one who had cast the rebel down. His sword pointed outward, away from paradise.
They had noticed the missing ones.
They had understood the betrayal.
They were going after them.
But the void was vast.
So the first light shone again.
And in the darkness between Heaven and Hell, new lights appeared.
Stars.
Worlds.
Planets.
Paths of fire and stone, scattered across the black so the armies of Heaven might travel, rest, search, and find the realm that had been hidden from them.
Sam stared as the carving spread upward into constellations.
"So the stars were made as road signs?" she muttered. "That's… weirdly practical."
The ninth stone was war.
The heavenly host found Hell.
And Hell answered.
Angels descended in shining ranks while demonic armies rose from below like smoke given claws. The two forces crashed together across the stone. Spears broke. Wings tore. Fire rained upward and downward. The strong angel and the wingless rebel faced each other again in the depths, but the carving did not show a true ending.
Only struggle.
Only blood.
Only retreat.
Only war beginning again.
And so Heaven and Hell fought, and the war had no end.
Sam hugged herself.
She was suddenly very aware that she was a baby standing in the middle of a frozen island, looking at a cosmic war carved into stone by people or things that had apparently thought this was important information to preserve.
"Great," she muttered. "Eternal war. Very comforting."
The tenth stone was different.
It was not Heaven.
It was not Hell.
It was something below or between or beyond them both.
The carving was arranged like layers of a cake, or maybe like a great unseen structure. At the highest point was the first light. Beneath it, Heaven and Hell remained locked in their endless struggle. But below that, a new vastness opened.
Galaxies bloomed across the stone.
Spirals within spirals.
Stars, worlds, oceans, forests, creatures, shapes of life, all appearing and vanishing across impossible distances. The carving suggested many attempts, many worlds, many living things brought into being and then abandoned, broken, or judged incomplete.
None of them were enough.
None of them became what the light intended.
Until one small world appeared in one small galaxy.
A blue world.
Sam leaned closer.
Earth.
She did not know how she knew.
She simply did.
The eleventh stone was quieter.
There was a garden.
Not Heaven's paradise, but something smaller. Mortal. Green and fragile beneath a softer sky. At its center stood a tree of light, and beneath it stood two human figures: one man and one woman.
They were shaped like the angels, but lesser.
No wings.
No immortality carved into their bodies.
No great armor, no crowns, no blazing weapons.
Only flesh, weakness, and possibility.
And somehow, the stone treated them as important.
More important than their size should have allowed.
And so mankind was made in the image of the higher beings, but mortal, fragile, and full of potential.
Sam stared at the two figures.
Adam and Eve.
The names rose in her mind even though the stone gave none.
Near the roots of the garden, something dark curled in the grass.
Not quite a snake.
Not quite a worm.
Something small, low, and wrong.
Sam's eyes narrowed.
"Oh, come on," she whispered. "You too?"
The twelfth stone lit last.
The garden was ruined.
The tree of light had withered, and beside it rose another tree, black and twisted, its roots sinking into human shapes. People scattered from the garden in every direction. They carried tools, weapons, children, and dead. They built cities. They raised towers. They crossed seas. They fought wars. They knelt, prayed, sinned, suffered, reached upward, fell downward, and kept going.
Humanity multiplied.
Humanity divided.
Humanity looked to the stars, to the sun, to the light above, searching for guidance it could barely hear and often misunderstood.
And then, at the far edge of the carving, light descended.
A figure came down from above.
Small compared to the first light.
Small compared to the great angels.
But bright.
A being sent from the light to the mortal world.
And there the story stopped.
Sam stood very still.
The twelve stones shone around her, each one a face of the same impossible book. Not pages, exactly. Faces. A twelve-faced story. A twelve-part creation carved into black stone and hidden under Arctic snow for God knew how long.
She turned slowly, trying to hold it all together.
Sam waited.
The stones gave no thirteenth face.
No explanation.
No helpful note carved underneath saying, "Dear Sam, this is why you have been turned into a baby girl and dropped onto an island."
Only the twelve.
Only the story.
Only the final image of something descending from the light toward mankind.
Sam stared at it.
Then she looked down at herself.
Tiny mittened hands.
White bunny suit.
Small body.
Second heartbeat.
Lightstone.
Thrown from the Sun.
Her face slowly went blank.
"…wait."
The wind moved softly between the stones.
Sam looked back at the twelfth carving.
A being descended from the light.
Then at the sky.
Then at Neo.
Then at herself again.
"No."
The word came out small but immediate.
"No, no, no. Don't do that. Don't you dare make that about me."
The stones glowed silently.
Sam pointed at the final carving with one mitten.
"What does that even mean? A being descended from the light? Which being? Why? For what? Is that supposed to be a prophecy? A warning? A badly organized history lesson?"
No answer came.
Of course no answer came.
The ancient circle merely shone around her, grand and holy and unbelievably unhelpful.
Sam's eye twitched.
"So let me get this straight," she said. "You show me light, angels, paradise, a tower, betrayal, Hell, cosmic war, galaxies, Eden, humanity falling apart, and then some mysterious light-person coming down at the end…"
She spread her tiny arms.
"And I'm supposed to do what with that?"
The mist drifted around the stones.
The sky remained silent.
Sam glared upward.
"What's the point of the story? What does it mean? What am I supposed to do with it?"
Only the wind answered.
That was when she finally noticed the floor.
While she had been staring at the stones, the disc beneath her had kept waking. Neo's weak light had crawled through the old grooves, melting the snow into slush and mist until the platform was no longer just a flat circle of stone.
It was a map.
Sam went still.
Not a map of the island. Not a map of rivers, coastlines, or mountains. Not even a map of the Earth.
The floor was covered in spirals.
At first she thought they were stars, but they were too large, too shaped, too deliberate. Wheels of light. Blooming arms. Clusters. Clouds. Long, curved paths running between them like roads drawn across the impossible.
Galaxies.
Whole galaxies.
Sam stared down at the glowing stone with the blank, exhausted horror of someone being handed homework by God.
"Oh, come on."
The paths all seemed to bend inward, one galaxy leading to another, then another, then another, until everything pointed toward the center of the disc. There, beneath Neo, a brighter circle waited like a sealed gate.
A destination.
Not a door she could open.
Not a button she could press.
A destination.
Sam crouched closer despite herself. One of the paths began beneath the eleventh stone, the one with the garden, the man, the woman, and the thing near the tree. Below it, carved into the floor, was a barred spiral shape that made something cold move through her stomach.
She was not an astronomer. She had been a man who cared more about training, investing, getting rich, and one day finally being stronger than Eric. But he—she—had seen enough school posters, documentaries, and random internet space pictures to recognize that shape.
"The Milky Way," Sam whispered.
From there, the road crossed the disc.
Galaxy after galaxy.
All the way toward the bright circle at the center.
The angel baby's words returned.
The one who goes to the stars with them.
Sam sat back.
For a moment she said nothing.
Then her face slowly went flat.
"No."
The word came out small, but certain.
"No, absolutely not."
She looked from the glowing map to her own mittened hands. Tiny hands. Baby hands. Weak hands that could barely dig snow, barely hold Neo without fumbling, barely do anything except glow a little and make magic rocks if she nearly froze to death first.
She was hungry.
She was cold.
She had no tools, no shelter worth bragging about, no idea what year it was, no idea where civilization was, and no teeth useful for eating anything that was not already soft.
And this stupid ancient circle had decided to show her a galaxy map.
Sam laughed once.
It was not a happy sound.
"So that's the big answer?" she asked the sky. "A creation story and a space road?"
No answer came.
Of course no answer came.
The map glowed silently beneath her, grand and holy and completely useless.
That was what made it insulting.
If it had shown her a cave, she could use that. If it had shown her fresh water, food, a village, a portal, anything real, anything nearby, she would have taken it. But galaxies? A shining gate at the center of creation? Some destiny-road for humanity?
She was a baby in a bunny suit.
She could not even climb over a snowdrift without help from dogs.
Her mouth tightened.
"No. No, you don't get to do that."
Neo pulsed faintly at the center of the disc.
The light flickered.
Sam jabbed one mitten at the map.
"You don't get to rip me out of my life, turn me into this, dump me in the middle of nowhere, and then act like a galaxy map is useful information!"
Her voice cracked high across the circle, embarrassingly babyish, which only made her angrier.
"I had plans!" she shouted. "I was going to make money. I was going to train. I was going to get stronger, richer, better. I was going to beat Eric one day and make him admit it!"
The dogs startled at the sudden noise. One barked. Another hurried close and pushed its nose against her shoulder, confused by the tiny creature yelling at heaven.
Sam barely noticed.
"Instead I'm here. Starving. Freezing. Small enough to be carried by a dog. And your answer is—what? 'Go to the stars with humanity'? Are you insane?"
Behind her, snow crunched.
The hunters had reached the circle.
All five stood at the edge of the platform, breathing hard from the climb. Their fur-wrapped shoulders rose and fell. Their eyes moved from the glowing stones, to the shining map, to Sam kneeling at the center beside the little white crystal.
None of them spoke.
Sam turned her head just enough to see them.
Primitive fur clothes. Stone blades. Spears. Hollow cheeks. No metal. No writing. No roads. No machines. No farms. No ships. No electricity. No internet. Nothing.
The map beneath her seemed even more ridiculous.
Sam let out another sharp little laugh.
"Oh, I get it," she said, looking back up at the sky. "You want me to lead them? These people? To the stars?"
The hunters flinched at her voice, though they could not understand the words.
Sam pushed herself upright, trembling now more from anger than cold.
"No."
The word was clearer this time.
"No quest. No destiny. No cosmic homework."
Neo gave another weak pulse.
The map flickered again.
Sam pointed toward the coast, toward the caves, toward the place where Duo waited and the seals gathered.
"I'm staying here," she snapped. "I'll survive. I'll use my light. I'll make this island livable if I have to. I'll grow up, find civilization, figure out what year it is, get rich with magic, train properly, and then, one day, I'm still beating Eric."
She paused, breathing hard.
The plan was insane.
Still less insane than crossing galaxies with cavemen.
"Yeah," she said, nodding to herself. "That's the plan. Magical millionaire cave baby. Better than space Moses."
The wind moved softly between the stones.
No beam of light came down.
No angel baby appeared.
No divine voice corrected her.
Sam lifted one mitten toward the sky.
"You hear me? I decide what I'm doing. Not you. Not some glowing toddler. Not a stupid floor map."
For a moment, she stood there in the center of the ancient circle, tiny, furious, and ridiculous, surrounded by dogs and watched by five silent hunters who looked as if they had just seen a sacred spirit curse the heavens.
Then the light died.
The map vanished first. The galaxies faded back into wet stone. The shining roads disappeared. The bright circle at the center dulled until it was only an old carved mark beneath Neo. Around her, the twelve monoliths went dark one by one, their images sinking back into black rock.
The warmth withdrew.
Cold crept into the circle again.
Sam lowered her hand.
"…oh."
She looked down.
Neo sat at the center of the disc, dimmer than before, its little white core barely pulsing.
All her anger vanished in an instant.
"Oh, crap," she whispered. "Neo?"
She dropped to her knees and scooped the Lightstone into both mittens.
It was still warm, but only faintly, like an ember buried under ash. Sam closed her eyes, took a careful breath, and reached inward. There, wrapped around her heart, was the second beat of light she had learned to feel. She pushed a little warmth down her arm and into Neo.
Not too much.
Just enough.
For a moment nothing happened.
Then Neo pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
The little star inside it brightened, weak but steady.
Sam exhaled.
"There you are."
Neo answered with another soft pulse.
Sam looked at the dead circle, then back at the crystal.
"So the ancient galaxy projector drains you dry," she muttered. "Good to know. We are not doing that again until you're less tiny."
She tucked Neo carefully back into the right side of her suit, guiding it down into her mitten until it rested against her palm. Its warmth returned slowly, fragile but familiar.
Only then did she remember the hunters.
Sam looked up.
All five men were staring at her.
The dogs were staring too.
The hunters had not understood a word she said. But they had seen the stones awaken. They had seen the floor become a map of stars. They had seen her rage at the sky, watched the lights die, and then watched the little white stone brighten again in her hands.
Fear.
Wonder.
Confusion.
Maybe all three.
Sam stared back at them.
"What?"
No one answered.
The wind moved between the stones, cold and ordinary again, while the ancient circle slept beneath the snow.