Smoke still clung to the bones of the city, rising in lazy columns from collapsed towers and shattered homes. The morning light cast no warmth, just pale gold over bloodied stone and broken wood. Cirol was alive, but not unscarred.

Boaz shifted the yoke on his shoulders, the ends lashed with thick rope to a stretcher behind him. Upon it lay the body of a defender: young, face unlined, a blackened arrow still protruding from his side. On the opposite end, Mika padded beside him, guiding the stretcher with quiet instinct. Thorne walked just ahead, dragging a second sled through the rubble. His wide shoulders and muscled haunches moved with purpose, tail low, ears turned outward for danger that no longer came.

All around them, the fellowship moved with silent efficiency.

Lyra coordinated a half-dozen villagers clearing debris from the main street. Her voice, firm and calm, carried across the courtyard. “Lift from the base. You’ll snap the beam if you rush it.”

Jaxson jogged past, relaying instructions from the barricades still holding at the outer edges. He paused long enough to give Boaz a nod, then vanished into the smoke again with Kestel circling overhead.

In the shadow of a scorched bell tower, Kiera knelt beside a boy cradling his mother’s body. Her fingers glowed faintly as she whispered something neither Boaz nor the boy could hear. The glow faded. The boy looked up, not smiling, but steadier, and took her hand.

Near the central plaza, Aldryn leaned against a pillar. His robe was torn, blood seeping slowly from a wrapped side, but his posture was upright. He lifted a waterskin with effort and drank, eyes following every movement of the survivors as if cataloging each one.

When Boaz and Mika reached the row of shrouded dead, they lowered the stretcher in silence. A grizzled man with bandaged hands stepped forward and helped pull the body into line.

“That makes nineteen from this quarter,” the man said.

Boaz wiped sweat from his brow. “There’ll be more.”

The man only nodded and moved on.

At the city’s northern edge, funeral pyres had begun to rise. Aguans stood in a circle around the first one: hands linked, eyes closed. A low chant began, not in mourning, but in memory: a song of the river’s return, of stones worn smooth and lives carried gently to rest. Boaz didn’t understand the words, but their meaning settled into his bones like cool water.

One of the younger defenders nearby wiped her face and turned to a companion. “Did you see him?” she whispered. “He turned one. Maybe more.”

Another shook his head. “They say the Sigil shone like the sun.”

Boaz overheard, but said nothing. He felt Thorne at his side, eyes steady on the horizon where new smoke still drifted in the east. The battle was over. But the world it left behind had changed.

By late afternoon, the plaza had been cleared. Not of scars, those would linger, but of rubble and bodies. The ancient flagstones, once buried beneath merchant stalls and soot, now gleamed faintly beneath a hasty washing. Survivors gathered in uneven rows, some in scorched armor, others with ash still streaked down their cheeks. Their eyes, tired but alert, turned toward the Keep’s eastern steps.

There, beneath the fractured city banners, were gathering the full Council of Seven. At their center was Thalenya, sharp-eyed and silver-braided, clad in deep crimson layered with soot. The others flanked her: Belvar, portly and wrapped in sea-blue robes now dirtied at the hem; Vettan, younger and ring-laden, his narrow face set in unreadable stillness; Hedwin, forever smirking, though the lines were harder now; and two others, including a pale woman in a fur-lined collar who scoffed less than usual today.

But it was Thalenya who stepped forward, her voice clear and unwavering. “Let it be known: Cirol stands. And it stands because of them.” She gestured toward the fellowship, who stood among the wounded defenders.

“Boaz, Lyra, Kiera, Jaxson, Theo, of Forlon. Merran, of Coralhaven, and Aldryn, of the Western Vale. You did not come with banners. You did not wait for summons. You saw a people in mortal danger, and you came to defend.”

She let that settle in the plaza, a hush falling. “We will mourn the fallen. We will bury the brave. But we will also remember those who came not as conquerors, but as kin.”

Belvar cleared his throat. “The Library then?”

Vettan muttered, “Are we sure—?”

“Enough,” Thalenya cut in, without heat but without hesitation.

She turned back to the fellowship. “Long ago, when Cirol stood against the first dark, a chamber was built beneath the Keep. A sanctum. A vault of knowledge and power, made not for kings, but for protectors. The Library of the Keepers.”

Even the soldiers flinched at the name. It had passed into legend. Aldryn stood a few steps behind the company, one arm still bound in cloth, a pale cut visible along his temple. “I thought it sealed,” he said softly.

“So did we,” said Thalenya. “Until the Sigil flared and the ward shifted. It opened.” She extended her hand. “We lend it to you. Not as a gift, but as a trust.”

Boaz lowered his eyes. “I don’t know if we deserve it.”

Hedwin snorted. “No one does.”

Belvar, for once, nodded soberly. “That’s the point.”

With a gesture, Thalenya signaled to the side of the Keep. A set of old stone steps was suddenly visible behind a lowered iron grate, long rusted and forgotten. The air that drifted out smelled of old parchment and something older still: arcane, and waiting.

“Learn what you can,” Thalenya said. “You’ve already bled for us. Now, take up the older war, against ignorance.”

There was no applause. Just the creak of old hinges and the sound of feet turning toward the dark below.

The door groaned open, seals parting with a low exhale like breath released after centuries.

Torchlight spilled into the chamber, catching dust motes suspended in stillness. The Library of the Keepers lay beneath the Keep like a buried heart, its pulse long dormant, now stirring again. Arched ceilings loomed overhead. Scroll niches lined the walls like honeycomb. Tables sagged under the weight of neglected tomes. A few crystal lamps flickered faintly, still holding charge.

“This place…” Theo whispered, stepping past the threshold, “shouldn’t be real.”

Aldryn said nothing at first. He touched the nearest shelf, reverent. “The Keepers preserved knowledge from the Age of Joining, before the Sundering. What was lost above was hidden below. You are the first to walk here in generations.”

They fanned out slowly, the companions trailing fingers along spines and dust-covered books. No guiding magic pulled them to a perfect scroll. No glowing tome presented itself like a chosen relic. There was only silence, age, and the quiet thrill of discovery.

Theo picked up a rusting schematic with glee, only for it to fall apart in his hands. “Not this one,” he muttered.

A few tables in, Kiera opened a heavy volume with diagrams of ancient binding runes. “Construct sigils,” she said, raising a brow. “Looks like something you’d like.”

Theo hurried over, brushing past her shoulder to examine it. “Now we’re talking.”

Jaxson leaned over a table of illusion scrolls, brow furrowed. “I can’t make heads or tails of this one.”

Lyra peeked over his shoulder. “Because it’s not for you. This here, this is light-bending, not sensory trickery. I’ve read something similar in Aldryn’s old notes.” She claimed the scroll with a grin, then added, “Thanks, though.”

He shrugged, unbothered, and pointed her toward another shelf. “That one has something about misdirection sigils.”

Across the room, Kiera was half buried in a stack of grimoires, searching for healing techniques that didn’t rely on direct touch. “So many of these assume the caster sings or chants for an hour,” she muttered. “In the middle of battle? Not exactly practical.”

She nearly gave up when Aldryn approached and handed her a thin, worn book with golden script. “This one belonged to Ilasha. She was a battlefield cantor. You might find Virelya’s Mercy near the final pages.”

Kiera traced the first sigil with reverence.

Jaxson circled the center table again, sighing, until Theo called out from a far alcove. “Hey, found a scroll with motion diagrams and timing spells. Looks like someone translated it from Old Altan.”

Jaxson joined him, skeptical, until he began reading. The diagrams danced with potential. Breath-sense. Anticipation. Flow before form. “Perivigilum,” he murmured. “That’s what they called it. The eye between strikes.”

Boaz stood by a crumbling wall fresco, watching the others. The Sigil beneath his tunic pulsed faintly, warm but quiet. He sifted through scrolls and books, but none stirred or called. It didn’t bother him — not quite. He ran a hand over a fragment of carved stone near the base of a pillar. It depicted three leaves and a flame between them.

Nothing needed to be said. He belonged here already.

A few hours passed. They read. They argued. They passed scrolls between one another and compared notes. Lyra summoned a flickering illusion that promptly collapsed. Theo’s excitement at a binding glyph sparked a low hum in one of his tools. Jaxson, normally restless, was hunched quietly over his scroll.

“I could stay down here for days,” Kiera admitted, stretching her neck.

“You might,” Aldryn said dryly. “But not tonight. Take what you need. Study what you can. This is not a treasure hoard, it is a responsibility.”

They left with arms full and minds racing. Some scrolls they would study by firelight. Others would unfold slowly, shaping their future days. But as they emerged back into the torchlit hall above, each of them carried something more than ink and parchment.

They carried promise.

Boaz lingered after the others had gone. The torches in the chamber guttered low, casting long, uncertain shadows across the scroll racks and worn stone. The air was dry, steeped in dust and old memories, but it was not unfriendly. A hush rested over the library, not lifeless, but listening.

He found himself drawn back to the pillar near the southern alcove, the one with the weathered carving: three leaves in a ring, with a single flame held between them.

The lines were simple, almost childlike, but something about it stirred him. He touched the etched grooves with callused fingers, the stone cool beneath his skin.

Then he turned, almost by instinct, and wandered to a shelf half-buried behind a collapsed scriptorium desk. Several tomes had fallen and lay forgotten in a slope of parchment and fragments. He knelt and began carefully lifting them one by one, until his eyes caught a faintly embossed cover, cracked but intact. No title.

Inside, the first pages were ink-washed with diagrams: ritual circles, sigils with unfamiliar curves, dense blocks of commentary in what looked like pre-Sundering Huma script. He nearly closed it.

Then he saw the drawing.

It was near the center of the book: the same design as the pillar: three leaves encircling a flame. But this version was brighter, more deliberate. The flame arced slightly, bending forward like a blade being drawn, and lines of energy radiated from its tip.

Beneath it, a single phrase, partially translated in faded ink: Vetharion: the mirror-wound.

Boaz stared at it, unmoving. He flipped the page. More diagrams followed: circular bindings, mirrored sigils, edge-runes marked with subtle notations. The translation was incomplete, but a line stood out in the margin, penned in a more modern hand:

“To turn back the harm sent against you, not by deflection, but redirection. The flame that strikes the innocent returns to its sender.” He sat heavily on the stone step beneath the shelf, the tome open on his lap. The idea twisted through him, wild and impossible.

Could this be what the Sigil was meant to do? Not merely shield, or punish, but transform violence. A ward not of vengeance, but of justice. He looked down. The Sigil beneath his tunic pulsed, slow and steady. Boaz closed the book, hands resting on the cover as if in prayer.

He did not yet understand this power: not its price, nor its limits. But it waited for him, like a path opening at the edge of the known. And when the time should come, he would walk it.

The next day, the sun rose soft over Cirol’s battered walls, brushing its broken stones with gold. Smoke still curled from pyres and cooking fires, but the air felt cleaner somehow, as though the very breath of the city had changed. Down below the Keep, where the land dipped into a quiet courtyard once meant for scholars and servants, a quiet gathering took shape.

They were not the usual crowd: no guards, no messengers, no council members. These were the Aguans. The warriors of Coralhaven, and a few younger elders who had come with them, all stood still around the ancient wellspring that bubbled gently through stone channels. The basin reflected the morning light like liquid silver.

Merran stood at its edge.

Boaz watched from just behind the crowd, arms crossed, the Sigil warm beneath his tunic. Beside him, the others stood in silence: Aldryn leaning on his cane but alert, Kiera with her hands clasped, Theo and Jaxson shoulder to shoulder, Lyra nearby with arms wrapped around herself.

They were all waiting. It had been seven days. Seven days since Merran had last touched the waters of Lake Evenwell.

The warding that Aldryn had given Merran back in Coralhaven had carried him this far. But even Aldryn had warned: “The wards are no more than scaffolding. If the curse holds, they will delay the fall, not prevent it.”

And so they had waited, watched, counted. Now the seventh dawn had come. Merran stepped forward into the open, his pale skin catching the light. He looked thinner than he had when they left Coralhaven, but no weaker. His breath was steady. His eyes clear.

He rolled up his sleeves, slowly, and stretched out his arms. The slits of his gills, faint but still present, did not twitch in thirst. His fingers, still subtly webbed, flexed and curled with ease.

“I should be dying,” he said. His voice was low, but it carried. “The sickness should’ve taken me by now: bone-ache, fever, breathless sleep.” He looked to Boaz. “But it hasn’t.”

A quiet murmur rippled through the Aguans. One of the younger warriors, a girl not yet into her fourth decade, let out a soft gasp and covered her mouth. An elder touched her own neck, where the gill-slits remained smooth and dry. Another knelt and ran his hand through the fountain’s edge but did not lift it to his mouth.

Aldryn stepped forward then, placing a hand on Merran’s shoulder. “The curse has not broken,” he said carefully. “It has been undone, its roots pulled from the earth by something deeper than spellcraft. A wound healed, not ignored.”

He turned to the company. “Because Boaz bore the Sigil into the depths, because he passed the trial with compassion… the water no longer binds them.”

Merran’s voice shook, not with weakness but with something deeper, something long buried. “The water is still part of me,” he said. “But it no longer owns me.”

And then, finally, the moment broke. Not with cheers, but with tears. The Aguans wept quietly, touching one another, whispering thanks to the Waters and to Boaz. One dropped to their knees and whispered a name: of a brother who had died miles from a stream, who could not endure the seventh day. Another came forward and pressed her forehead to Merran’s, their gill slits brushing in an old gesture of shared breath.

Boaz felt their eyes turn toward him, and he shrank under their gratitude. He hadn’t done this alone. He hadn’t even known it was possible.

Kiera reached out and gently touched his arm. “You gave them freedom,” she said. “Even if you didn’t mean to.”

Aldryn turned back toward the fountain, nodding slowly. “The world is changing,” he murmured.

Merran stepped up onto the rim of the wellspring, water gleaming beneath him, and raised his voice, not loud, but steady. “The world has changed,” he said. “So must we.”

And no one spoke for a long time after that. They only stood in silence, beneath a morning sun that no longer felt borrowed.

The sun hung low over Cirol’s battered skyline, casting long shadows over the keep and its surrounding streets. What had been the site of carnage just a day ago now pulsed with new purpose. Refugees from the safe houses had begun to arrive in earnest: carts groaning under salvaged belongings, children clinging to mothers, elders blinking in the sunlight like those waking from a long dream. Some wept to see the city still standing. Others rolled up sleeves and joined the labor without a word.

Merran had spent the morning assisting at the southern quarter, organizing small groups to restore the old aqueduct channels. His limbs ached, but he felt lighter than he had in years. Each breath was his own again, not borrowed from the lake or stolen from the edge of collapse. He knelt beside a stone trough, scrubbing dirt from his hands, when a quiet voice interrupted him.

“Elder Merran.”

He looked up to see two Aguan warriors approaching. One was a woman of solid build, with tightly braided black hair and a scar that trailed along the side of her neck, just above her gill slits. Her armor was reinforced leather, stained with ash and trimmed in knotted cords of rivergrass; markings of a seasoned Coralhaven guardian. The other, a man, was lean and sharp-eyed, his demeanor calm but intense. They both bore signs of the recent battle: nicks in their armor, weariness in their shoulders, but no hesitation in their gaze.

Merran stood, wiping his hands on a cloth. “Telen and Shaye,” he said, recognizing them. “You fought well. You’ve made Coralhaven proud.”

Shaye, the woman, inclined her head. “It was your lead that carried us here. And your voice that convinced the elders to let us march. But we’re not here to speak of that.”

Telen stepped forward. “We would ask your blessing, to leave the company of our kin, and journey with the warden-bearer.”

Merran blinked. “With Boaz?”

“Yes,” Shaye said. “And his companions. If they’ll have us.”

“We’ve seen what he’s done,” Telen added. “Not only in battle, but what he gave back to us. We believe there’s more to come, and we want to be part of it.”

Shaye’s hand touched the carved bone token at her belt. “The leaf broke the curse. Coralhaven is no longer a prison. But we want to see what lies beyond the shore, to help others find what we’ve found.”

Merran studied them for a long moment, then gave a low chuckle. “I should be telling you to stay,” he said. “To rebuild, to anchor our people. But I think you’re right. The road ahead won’t be walked by the old.”

He reached out, touching their foreheads briefly with his fingers. “You have my blessing. May the waters welcome you in every land.”

Later that afternoon, Boaz and a few of the company — Lyra, Theo, and Kiera — were hauling charred timber from the steps of the keep when the two Aguans approached. Boaz looked up, brow furrowed, as they stopped before him.

“We’ve spoken to Merran,” Telen said. “We’d like to journey with you, if you’ll have us.”

Shaye nodded. “Not as symbols. Just as who we are. As warriors of Coralhaven, and witnesses to something greater than ourselves.”

Boaz glanced between them. “You’re sure about this?”

“Sure enough to leave the lake behind,” Shaye said. “There’s still a fight ahead. And we believe you’re part of the reason we’re free to face it.”

Telen extended his hand. “I am Telen of the Riverward. She is Shaye, Coralhaven’s third spear. We fight well. We learn fast.”

Boaz took the hand and clasped it with his own, surprised by the strength in the Aguan’s grip. “We’re not sure where we’re going next,” Boaz said. “But we won’t be turning back.”

Shaye smiled faintly. “Then we’ll walk with you. Until the current splits.”

The company had taken a short break from the rebuilding efforts, walking together along a narrow path that twisted between rows of crumbling buildings. The sounds of hammers and voices drifted faintly behind them, carried on a cooling breeze. Boaz walked in front, absently running his fingers along a cracked stone wall as they passed. His tunic was still damp from hauling buckets; his arms ached pleasantly. Beside him walked Kiera, and behind them, Lyra and Theo, deep in quiet conversation.

“I remember this street,” Kiera murmured. “It was a market once. Just after we first arrived, I bought a handful of dried berries from an old man with a cane. He told me Cirol was built on a resting place.”

Boaz slowed. “A Traveler’s Rest?”

She nodded. “I thought it was a metaphor. But… maybe not.”

The alley widened into a circular courtyard, half-forgotten and overgrown. Wild grasses pushed through cobbles, and vines crept over what remained of a weathered stone arch. At its center stood a ring of standing stones — short, waist-high — and in their middle, a broken pump well and a pedestal carved with ancient grooves.

Boaz stepped forward slowly, drawn by something he couldn’t name. The pedestal was dark with moss and cracked in two places, but a faint glimmer traced its runes now, barely perceptible in the shade. He brushed away the moss with his sleeve.

“The pattern,” he whispered. “This is the same as Coralhaven.”

Kiera moved beside him, eyes widening. “Then this must be one of the old Resting Wells. The ones before the Sundering.”

Boaz nodded. “Maybe even older.”

Theo circled the edge, running a hand along one of the standing stones. “There’s no sign anyone’s used this in decades. It makes sense I guess, since it’s mostly a ruin.”

As Boaz placed his palm on the pedestal, the Sigil at his chest pulsed once, faint, but steady. The carved grooves flickered, then brightened like veins filling with silver. A low sound echoed through the courtyard: the deep, gentle groan of ancient stone stirring.

Then, with a shuddering breath, the well pump let out a hiss ,and water began to flow. Clear, fresh water surged from the spout in a glittering arc, spilling into the circular basin below. It smelled of rain and something older, like the first spring after a long, bitter winter.

Kiera covered her mouth. “It’s alive.”

From behind them, a gasp. Shaye and Telen had followed quietly, and now stood at the courtyard’s edge, motionless. “This was dead,” Shaye murmured. “My people had passed on the knowledge of the history of Cirol. For generations, the elders said the city had choked its roots. But this…”

Boaz stepped back from the pedestal. “I didn’t do this alone. The Sigil… the leaf.”

Theo knelt by the basin and dipped his fingers in. “It’s cool. Cleaner than anything we’ve drawn since we arrived.”

“Do you think the others will see?” Lyra asked softly.

Boaz shook his head. “Maybe. Maybe not right away. But something’s changing. This city isn’t just surviving. It’s waking up.”

They stood together in the quiet, the rush of water mingling with the far-off sound of hammers and laughter from the heart of the city. The sun dipped lower, and in the soft gold light, the silver-traced stones of the Traveler’s Rest gleamed like an offering long buried, now found.

The sounds of life, children, and work filled the courtyards of Cirol like a kind of music; the rough, honest rhythm of a city mending itself. Smoke no longer choked the skyline. Instead, it curled from cookfires and smithy chimneys, where warmth and purpose returned to hearths long gone cold. The air, still laced with the scent of ash and stone, was stirred by the calls of children playing amid the ruins.

And the fellowship worked among them. Theo crouched beside a collapsed archway, sleeves rolled to the elbow, as he calibrated the movement of one of his small constructs. Its brass limbs clanked awkwardly as it placed stones with almost reverent care, guided by runes he scribbled anew every hour.

A group of boys watched, wide-eyed. “Will it build me a house?“ one of them asked.

Theo chuckled. “Only if you don’t knock it over first.“

“What’s it called?“ another asked.

He thought for a second. “Don’t know yet. It’s still earning its name.”

Just beyond, Kiera moved among the wounded and weary. With no battlefield to tend, she had found a new rhythm, visiting makeshift shelters, listening as much as healing. Her hands hovered over the cracked ribs of an old baker who’d fallen during the siege. A golden warmth gathered at her palms: not fire, not light, but something gentler. It spread outward in a soft song only she seemed to hear.

The baker sighed. “Haven’t slept well in years.”

She smiled, brushing damp hair from her brow. “Then it’s about time you did.”

Lyra had taken to the rooftops. From above, she directed repairs like a hawk overseeing her nest. She barked orders to a team of volunteers, laughing as she nearly lost her balance on a loose shingle. “Not dead yet,” she grinned. “Let’s keep it that way.”

Later, when no one was watching, she sat on the ledge alone. Her gaze drifted northward, toward the battered gates. The city had held, but barely. She pulled from her satchel a small illusion orb she’d learned how to craft in the library, now dim. With a whispered word, it shimmered to life, creating the fleeting image of the city whole, unbroken. Just to see it.

Jaxson moved like a ghost between districts, checking on pockets of guards, delivering tools or news, encouraging the timid. He paused only when he heard laughter; a group of children chasing a mangy dog through the square.

One stopped and tugged on his cloak. “Were you really on the wall when the demon came?”

He crouched, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “I was. But the wall held because of everyone else.”

“Even the dog?”

He gave the dog a mock salute. “Especially the dog.”

Boaz helped where he could, lifting beams, carting stone, accepting thanks he didn’t think he deserved. The Sigil, now dull beneath his tunic, seemed to pulse only when he passed someone grieving.

He saw Merran and the Aguan warriors working to fortify a water channel, their movements swift and fluid, their hands still marked with dirt and ash. They were not of this city, and yet they labored for it as if it were their own.

Boaz paused beside them, offering a quiet nod. And in return, he received three more.

That evening, long after the last stones had been laid and the fires banked low, Boaz stood alone at the edge of the rampart where the northern wall had once stood proud. The stars above Cirol shimmered in streaks of silver, reflected faintly in the repaired channels of water that now ran freely once more.

Footsteps padded softly behind him, barefoot, light. Merran joined him without a word, his silhouette calm against the faint torchlight. They stood together in silence for a long while. Finally, Merran spoke. “It is strange, not needing the water.”

Boaz glanced down at him, and his now bootless feet. “And yet you still came to it. I see you rid yourself of the boots.”

Merran smiled, but it was a quiet, almost wistful thing. “Not for need. For remembrance. For gratitude. And yes, I’m still most comfortable in my bare feet.” He laughed lightly, a heartfelt joy on his face.

Boaz looked down at his hands, calloused and still lined with dirt. “I didn’t free all of you. Only some.”

“You did not need to free all to begin the healing.” Merran turned to face him. “And you did not do it alone.”

Boaz nodded slowly. “It still doesn’t feel like enough.”

“It never will,” Merran said gently. “Because your heart is still learning how to carry what you’ve taken on. But I have lived long enough to know this: when a river first breaks through stone, it does not flow wide or deep. It begins as a trickle. A quiet thing. But over time, it carves valleys. Shapes mountains. And gives life to what was barren.”

Boaz looked at him, quiet. Merran placed a hand on Boaz’s arm. “Tomorrow, I return to Coralhaven. My people need to see that I still live, and more importantly, that I am still Aguan, even with dry feet.”

“I wish you didn’t have to leave,” Boaz said. “You were the first Aguan to believe in me.”

“And I still do. But there is more than one river to follow.” Merran’s voice grew softer. “And yours flows onward now. To deeper places still.”

He reached into the folds of his tunic and removed a small woven pendant, shaped from lakegrass and riverbeads, pale green and silver-blue. He pressed it into Boaz’s hand.

“A blessing, from the old ways,” Merran said. “Worn only by those we would trust to guide a boat blindfolded across the deepest waters. It is not for power or rank. It is for faith.”

Boaz closed his fingers around it, the threads still damp with river scent. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

Merran stepped back, and for the first time, he bowed: not deeply, not with grandeur, but with the weight of history and respect.

“The lake remembers,” he said. “And so do we.”

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