After the Silence
The mist where Mira vanished lingered for hours. Elric stood motionless beside the lake's edge, his knuckles white on the hilt of his blade. Lena sat cross-legged nearby, eyes closed, murmuring to the wind. Bram traced silent patterns in the snow, his connection to the Between humming like a taut string.
"She chose," Lena finally said, voice distant. "The path was hers to walk."
"But where did she go?" Elric asked. "That thing—whatever it was—took her."
"Not took," Bram said softly. "Led."
In the absence of Mira, the world seemed… thinner. The wind carried no songs. The leaves on distant trees turned dull. But the Tree in Elmsworth still pulsed faintly with life—and through it, they could feel her.
"She's not gone," Lena confirmed. "Only… farther."
That night, the stars above the lake rearranged themselves. A new constellation appeared—a spiral of lights not seen in living memory. The villagers nearby named it Mira's Path.
But the peace was short-lived.
Word arrived within days: The eastern lowlands were shifting. The ground cracked open, and rivers reversed their course. Magic surged uncontrollably, reshaping the land. And in the center of the chaos, people spoke of strange lights—mirrors of the Lantern's glow.
"She opened something," Lena said. "And the world is responding."
Elric tightened the straps of his armor. "Then we can't sit and wait. If she made this choice for us, we honor it by continuing."
A new journey began—not to find Mira, but to understand what she had awakened. They followed the surge of wild magic, through forests that had grown teeth, rivers that whispered warnings, and ruins rising from the earth like lost memories.
Each sign pointed to a greater convergence. Something was drawing all things—magic, memory, and myth—into a single place.
Bram paused one morning, his hand on a stone carved with a symbol they had only seen once before: the mark etched into the Lantern of No Flame.
"She left us a trail," he said.
And so, they followed.