The mountain woke them with warmth instead of noise. A low, steady thrum threaded the stone, less a sound than a feeling in the bones, like a hand placed over a heartbeat. Pale amber veins in the walls brightened by degrees until the guest chamber stood in a gentle dawn.

Boaz opened his eyes to the weight of the Sigil against his chest and frowned. The artifact’s pulse, which had settled into calm after the forging, now carried a faint burr beneath the tone, barely there, like grit in a gear. Not wrong, just… unsettled. He lay still, counting the beats: crimson and pearl in accord, but a whisper off center. When he sat up, the burr followed.

“Morning,” Kiera said softly from the bench across the room. She had been awake awhile, hands folded, eyes clear. “How’s the fire?”

He hesitated. “Listening. And… restless.”

She studied him for a breath, then nodded as if that answer matched some quiet instinct of her own. On the far side, Theo rolled out from under his cloak with a groan and began flexing stiff fingers. “Why does sleeping on carved rock make my hands hurt?” He found his gloves, sniffed them, decided the mountain’s new-clean smell forgave yesterday’s sweat, and tugged them on. “I dreamed of gears politely asking me not to touch them.”

“Polite but stern gears,” Lyra said, pulling her cloak over her shoulders. “That’s how you know you’re in Durn-Kelmar.”

Jaxson was already lacing his boots, mouth full of blistered bread saved from supper. “I’m ready,” he said around it, crumbs erupting. “I have been ready since last night.”

“You were ready before you slept,” Lyra said, deadpan. “You were ready while you ate. You were ready while you talked in your sleep.”

“I don’t, do I?”

Theo and Lyra: “Yes.”

Kiera stood and crossed to the kettle. Steam lifted in a thin line. She poured cups of bright Terran tea, passing them one by one. “Drink,” she said. “It makes throats brave, or so I’ve been told,” she added with a smirk.

Jaxson sniffed his. “It’s potent.”

“That’s because it’s alive,” Theo said cheerfully.

“You said that about the walls,” Lyra said. “And the stew. And the bread.”

“The bread listened to the knife,” Theo protested. “Bragh said so.”

As if summoned by his name, Bragh shouldered the door with a grin, a tray balanced on both palms. “Guest-break,” he announced. “Warm. Clean. No bad vine.” He set the tray on the low stone table: another black-stone pot of root stew that steamed gold; chevron-stamped bread; thin slices of a pale, delicate fungus seared at the edges; a small bowl of salt crystals shining like frost. “Eat,” he urged. “Then Wardens call.”

“The council?” Boaz asked.

Bragh’s grin dimmed a hair. “Yes. Stone speak to stone. Six rings meet. They ask you come… before you go.” His Common was steadier today, words finding one another with practice. He noticed Boaz’s hand at his chest. “Fire-thing sing wrong?”

“Not wrong,” Boaz said, caught by the accuracy. “Just…different.”

Bragh tapped his ear. “Halls hum change too. New sound in old places. We listen.” He brightened again and pointed to the fungus. “Sky-ear. Good. Makes head clever. Not too much; make head too clever.” He mimed an exploding skull; Jaxson almost choked laughing.

They ate. Warmth settled through them: roots and salt and clean fat, the honest food of people who built by hand and breath. Thorne padded close to Boaz’s knee and soaked the heat like a hearthstone, eyes half-lidded, tail a slow thump. Kestel circled once in the high air shaft and came to roost near Eira; the owls’ amber eyes mirrored the walls.

Kiera watched the company over her cup, gaze moving from face to face: Theo’s quick mind already sketching, Jaxson vibrating with motion, Lyra’s guarded humor, Aldryn’s wry patience like a banked ember. When she looked toward the doorway, her eyes changed. Outside in the corridor, Terrans moved past in pairs and threes, not staring, but measuring. Many faces shone with quiet gratitude; just as many held the flat, careful look of those who have learned that gifts arrive with costs.

She caught Boaz’s attention with a tilt of her chin. He followed her look, saw both expressions, and gave a small, acknowledging nod. “We did change their home,” he said. “People don’t always like being changed.”

“People don’t like being told they’ve been changed,” Lyra said. “Different thing.”

Aldryn set his empty cup aside. “The elders will try to put words to what they felt,” he said. “Words are how we make peace with wonder. And how we bleed it, if we’re not careful.”

Theo leaned close to Boaz while he cinched the last strap on a pack. “What does it feel like? The Sigil, I mean. Is it… complaining?”

“Not complaining.” Boaz searched for the shape of the thing. The burr under the tone was clearer now, like a second voice testing a harmony. “Like someone humming along through a wall. You can’t hear the song, just that it’s… near.”

“That’s either beautiful,” Lyra said, “or unsettling.”

“Yes,” Boaz said.

Jaxson slung his bow and grinned at Thorne. “You ready, beast?”

Thorne heaved a very put-upon sigh purely for effect and rose to his paws.

Bragh returned as they finished strapping bedrolls and blades. Behind him stood Dorn and Kegh, helms under arms, the chevrons on their armor polished to a dark shine. Dorn’s scarred jaw set in something like approval when he saw the packs; Kegh’s eyes took in every buckle and strap with the swift precision of a fighter who has learned to count survival in small, fast choices.

“Wardens call,” Dorn said. His Common had the same rock-rough cadence as the elders’, but the words came more easily. “We take you.”

“We’re grateful,” Boaz said, and meant it.

They followed into the corridors. The deeper halls had taken on a different timbre since last night: less echo, more resonance. Tools clinked in far workshops. Children’s voices carried like bright chips of stone skittering over slate. In a side passage they passed a shrine no bigger than a cupboard: a single fireglass shard set in iron, a bowl of clean water beneath it, three pebbles stacked with careful balance. Lyra slowed at it, the simplicity, the steadiness, and then caught up without a word.

The nearer they came to the high ways, the more eyes followed them. Gratitude first, palms to hearts, nods like small bows, then caution shading back over faces as whispers reached those who had not stood in the Sanctum. Kiera counted the change the way she counted a pulse: a rhythm, then a skip.

At a stair where the light deepened from amber to rust-red, Dorn lifted a hand and the company paused. Ghor waited above with the other elders: copper-ringed, moss-marked, the one-eyed veteran, the younger woman whose armor was etched with geometry symbols. Their armor had been re-buckled, their faces washed, but something drawn inward sat in the set of their mouths. They had argued through the dark.

Ghor’s gaze went first to Boaz, then to the Sigil, then back. “You go today,” he said, more statement than question.

Boaz inclined his head. “We would. The road won’t grow kinder for waiting.”

“Stone not stop you,” said the copper-ringed elder. He touched his chest in that Terran salute: fist to breastbone, short, honest. Then his eyes slid to the Sigil again, like a moth to a lamp. “Before go… Council speak. We ask you listen also.”

“We will,” Boaz said.

The moss-marked Warden stepped aside, gesturing toward the great passage that led up into the vaulted hall. “Come,” he said. “Many ears. Many minds.”

As they started forward, the Sigil gave a small, unmistakable tremor, like a string plucked off-key. Boaz glanced down; the light within seemed unchanged, crimson and pearl in slow breath. The burr persisted, faint but present, as if the mountain itself had picked up a harmony it didn’t know yet.

Kiera fell into step beside him. “Still unsettled?”

“Still,” Boaz said.

“Then let’s walk together to settle it,” she answered simply.

Theo bumped Jaxson’s shoulder with his own. “If anyone asks for a demonstration, don’t volunteer to jump a chasm.”

“I only jumped two chasms,” Jaxson said, ticking them off. “And one was barely a chasm.”

“That’s exactly one too many,” Lyra said.

Aldryn’s mouth twitched. “Try not to antagonize anyone whose door is also their ceiling,” he advised, and the line was just absurd enough to wring a low laugh out of all of them, even Dorn, who blinked as if surprised that laughter still worked in such halls.

They climbed the final flight. The vaulted chamber opened like a burnished wound in the mountain, ribs of red stone arching high, banners of hammered iron hanging like cooled waterfalls. Terrans filled the galleries in layered ranks: warriors, smiths, elders, apprentices, children held close on hips. At the far end, the six Wardens’ seats formed a half-circle around a clear floor of polished basalt veined with fireglass. The air was warm and clean, the audience attentive.

Ghor lifted his hammer once, and the hall settled in a wave. He did not take the central seat. He remained standing, as if the mountain itself had not yet told him to rest.

“You come to speak,” he said to Boaz, slow and careful. “We come to listen. Then… we say what stone say back.” His one good eye flicked to Aldryn. “Old-speaker also speak.” He drew a breath, as if bracing against something unseen. “And one other.”

Boaz felt the Sigil’s burr hitch, not louder, but closer. A draft skated over the floor where there was no vent. Kiera’s fingers touched his elbow and rested there.

Ghor’s voice carried to every tier. “Man of the surface waits at the high door,” he said. “He say he comes as friend of deep. He speak smooth. He carry marks of us, runes we do not give. We bring him in, because stone is brave.” His jaw tightened. “Stone also careful.”

Aldryn’s eyes narrowed, not in surprise, but in confirmation of an old suspicion finally finding air. “So the morning begins,” he murmured.

“Calm,” Boaz said, mostly to himself. “We walk together.”

Kiera’s hand squeezed, once. Theo flexed his fingers as if testing invisible strings. Lyra lifted her chin like someone stepping into sunlight. Jaxson rolled his shoulders, and Thorne’s ears angled forward.

Warmth, unity, and the faintest, foreign thread of dissonance thrummed through the red hall as the Wardens signaled for the doors to open.

The high doors of the council hall opened with a long, sighing pull, and a shaft of cooler air spilled across the basalt floor. Conversations dimmed. Torches guttered in a ripple as though bowing.

A single figure stepped through.

For a heartbeat, the company froze. Then…

“Lucar?” Lyra said aloud, startled.

Theo blinked. “Well I’ll be…”

Kiera exhaled in relief. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

Jaxson actually grinned. “If this mountain has a tavern, I’m buying him a drink.”

Even Boaz felt a flicker of familiarity soften the tension in his shoulders. He remembered Lucar’s genial half-smile by the hearth in Beltin, the way he’d scribbled notes furiously while asking townsfolk about the old towers, the kindness he’d shown that frightened child whose father had gone missing. A wandering historian. A harmless scholar.

Lucar returned their looks with warm recognition. “My friends,” he said, spreading his hands in greeting. “I had hoped our paths might cross again, but I did not imagine it would be here, beneath the beating heart of legend.” His voice was exactly as they remembered: smooth, lightly accented, just amused enough to disarm.

But his appearance had changed. His cloak was Terran-cut now, marked with a polished Deep Archive insignia: a crest the Wardens themselves rarely displayed. Copper-threaded patterns climbed his sleeves. He wore no pack, no dust on his boots.

Jaxson leaned toward Theo. “He cleans up well.”

Theo whispered back, “Or too well.”

Lucar stepped forward with a respectful bow toward the council. “Honored Wardens of Durn-Kelmar, I come not as intruder, but as witness. Word travels fast above the stone, and faster still beneath it. I bring greetings from the surface watchers, the lower scholars, and the deep-kin who still guard your history.”

His Common was perfect. Not surface-flavored, but shaped now with Terran cadence.

Ghor’s brows pinched. “You surface-man. How you speak deep-tongue craft?”

Lucar smiled kindly. “Study, Warden. And reverence.”

He turned then to the company, slowly, deliberately, as though savoring the reunion. “Boaz,” he said softly. “When we parted in Beltin, I thought you merely a wanderer touched by uncanny destiny. Yet here I find you reborn by fire itself. Truly, the world turns swiftly in your presence.”

Boaz inclined his head, caught between unease and residual trust. “Last time we saw you, you were collecting stories.”

“And now,” Lucar said gently, “I collect truths instead.”

Lyra chuckled. “Still dramatic, aren’t you?”

“Only when it suits me.” Lucar’s eyes warmed. “It is genuinely good to see you alive. The road east is no gentle stretch of earth.” Then, seamlessly, he faced the Wardens again, posture shifting to that of a patient lecturer addressing a hall of apprentices.

“Forgive me, honored council,” he began, lifting his hands in a respectful gesture. “These companions of mine are too modest to speak of what they have accomplished. But I witnessed some of it firsthand, their courage, their unity, the strange currents that move around this Sigil-bearer. Yet I must also speak plainly, for wonder carries its own shadows.”

The shift in tone was subtle, almost invisible. The company heard it. So did the mountain. Lucar’s voice softened to a reasoned, thoughtful cadence. “When power awakens too quickly, it can uproot the very people it seeks to save. Consider, Wardens… the forging of the leaf below us. A miracle, yes. But miracles come at cost.”

A quiet murmur rippled through the ranks.

“Power that moves too swiftly,” Lucar continued, “cracks the vessel that holds it. A flame leaping the hearth burns the house, not the wind. Is it not wise, then, to ask whether the mountain’s song truly rose of its own will, or was compelled by a force that does not understand our ways?”

Aldryn rose, staff braced. “The mountain chose him. He forced nothing.”

Lucar bowed slightly in acknowledgment. “So we believe. But belief is a delicate lantern in deep places. One must shield it from drafts.”

Jaxson frowned. “Why are you talking like this?”

Lucar’s eyes flicked toward him, sympathetic. “Because I saw Beltin’s soot still staining the cobbles. I saw a fire on the horizon, a light not wholly kind. And I have heard whispers above ground that the Sigil’s flame is stirring old threats. Threats that follow light wherever it shines.”

The copper-ringed Warden shifted uneasily.

Kiera whispered to Boaz, “He’s turning their awe into fear.”

“I know,” Boaz said. The Sigil hummed again, not pain, but dissonance, a note out of tune with itself.

Lucar paced slowly across the floor, steps soundless. “Durn-Kelmar has endured ages by walking carefully, not at the pace of prophecy but at the pace of stone. If you bind yourselves now to a flame touched by ancient will, do you not risk drawing war into your halls? Unity with outsiders is noble, but unity invites attention. And attention invites ruin.”

His voice softened to a final, devastating whisper. “Even the brightest flame casts long shadows.” The hall stirred. Wardens exchanged uncertain glances. Terran apprentices whispered.

Theo looked shaken. Lyra’s hand hovered near her crossbow. Jaxson swore under his breath. And Boaz stood very still, watching Lucar with a new, chilling clarity. The man from Beltin had worn kindness like a cloak. The man before them wore truth like a blade.

Not lies. Not bluster. Plausible danger, wrapped in reason. The most dangerous kind. And still, the company could not help the instinctive warmth they felt toward him, the memory of shared tables, shared danger, shared stories.

Lucar smiled faintly at their conflicted faces. “I speak not against the bearer,” he said. “Nor against the flame. Only for caution. For wisdom. For the deep.”

But the Sigil disagreed. Boaz felt it clearly now: its pulse vibrating in warning, as if truth itself had bristled at the man’s words.

Lucar’s voice dropped one last register, so gentle it made even Ghor lean closer. “I fear not the flame,” he said. “I fear what hunts it.”

And for a moment, even the company believed him.

The hall held its breath.

Lucar’s final whisper still rippled through the galleries. It was soft, not sharp, but like a pebble dropped into a deep pool, rings spreading outward, touching every mind in its path.

Ghor set both hands on the haft of his hammer. “Speak clear,” he rumbled, voice grinding through layers of instinct. “What hunt? Speak name.”

Lucar didn’t step back or shrink. He only tilted his head in a scholar’s posture, thoughtful, almost regretful. “If I could name it, Warden, I would. But the old wounds of the world don’t always leave tidy signatures.”

It was a perfect answer…caution dressed as wisdom, ignorance offered as humility. A few of the Terrans nodded, seeing honesty where there was only omission.

Aldryn stood straighter. “You’ve spoken much of danger,” he said, voice calm but gaining edge. “But you have not spoken of intent. What is it you want the council to decide, traveler?”

Lucar met the old sorcerer’s gaze with warm respect. “Only what they feel is safest: time. Reflection. A slower path than the one that has seized your young bearer.” His eyes flicked to Boaz. “One does not temper two leaves in so short a span without price.”

Something cold crept through Boaz’s spine. “You weren’t in the forge,” he said. “You don’t know what it asked.”

Lucar turned toward him slowly, expression open, almost gentle. “Boaz… I know zeal when I see it. And zeal is a forge hotter than flame.”

Lyra’s scowl sharpened. “He didn’t rush anything. The mountain chose him.”

“And mountains,” Lucar replied softly, “have fallen before.”

That landed like a blow. It was not loud, not dramatic. Just true enough to be plausible, just dark enough to seed doubt. Several Terrans murmured, shifting on their stone benches. One of the younger apprentices flinched, eyes darting to the glowing veins in the floor as though imagining collapse.

Aldryn took a deliberate step forward. “You speak as though you’ve studied the Sigil. But you were in Beltin, with quills and questions. What do you know of this artifact?”

Lucar’s smile didn’t falter. “Its history, its echoes, the way it threads through every ruin and prophecy left behind by ages that ended in flame.” He looked at the council. “A thing that shapes kingdoms should be handled with caution, not… affection.”

Theo bristled. “Affection? You talk like it’s a weapon, not a gift.”

“Weapons,” Lucar said gently, “are only gifts with sharper edges.”

Boaz felt the Sigil vibrate hard enough that he pressed a palm to it. Heat pulsed beneath his fingertips, not burning, but warning. A discordant note within its hum sharpened, like metal singing under strain.

Kiera whispered at his side, “It’s answering him.”

Lucar’s gaze drifted toward them. “It’s not answering me, dear one. It’s answering truth.”

That was too far. Lyra barked a quiet laugh. “Truth? From a man who vanished the moment Beltin grew strange?”

Lucar’s expression never cracked. “I do not chase danger. I observe it.”

“Funny,” Jaxson said. “We keep finding you in front of it.”

Ripples of tension spread through the Terran crowd. Several elders exchanged uncomfortable glances. The moss-marked Warden leaned toward his copper-ringed neighbor, whispering fast and low. The younger woman with geometric etchings frowned in thought, not hostility; Lucar had given her something to solve.

And that was his real weapon: logic that slid sideways, half-truth shaped like reason, comfort masquerading as caution. Lucar spread his hands again, scholar’s posture resumed. “Look at what the Sigil has awakened: beasts of rot, wolves of ash, ancient curses half-asleep. Do you believe the deep will be spared? Do you believe your old wards, untested for centuries, will hold if the world above is stirred into frenzy?”

Several apprentices murmured anxiously. The copper-ringed Warden’s jaw tightened. The one-eyed veteran stared into the floor as though listening to cracks forming.

Aldryn’s staff struck stone with a resonant crack that echoed like a judge’s gavel. “Enough. Your words stir fear, not wisdom.”

Lucar turned toward him with almost tender pity. “Fear is wisdom wearing simpler clothes, Aldryn Quell. Better to entertain it now than fall to it later.”

“Prophecy warns us of division,” Aldryn countered. “And you stand here performing it.”

“Prophecies,” Lucar said, voice still low, still gentle, “were written by frightened men who could not bear uncertainty. Servants to kings. Servants to their own hope. Should we let their words dictate the pulse of the mountain? Or should we trust what our eyes see? A young man wearing power older than nations.”

Boaz stepped forward, heat rising under his skin. “You’re twisting every truth you touch. If you came to help, then say so. If you came to hinder us, then stop pretending you’re doing us a favor.”

Lucar looked genuinely wounded. It was a flawless mask. Perfect. Human. Reasonable. “I came only to warn,” he whispered. “I came because I care for the deep, for Beltin, for you. But if my concern is unwelcome…” He let his voice trail off, soft enough that sympathy pulsed through the gallery.

The younger Warden stood abruptly. “The surface moves fast. Too fast. We Terran move carefully. This… speed is danger.”

The copper-ringed elder nodded slowly. “Stone cracks when struck too hard, too fast.”

But the moss-marked Warden growled, “Flame is clean now. Rot flee. We see truth.”

And Ghor slammed his hammer down once, silencing both arguments. “Council speak soon,” he said. But his eyes shifted between Lucar and Boaz with wary uncertainty, a mind pulled between gratitude and fear.

Lucar had planted the seeds. And the hall was full of fertile ground. Boaz’s heart pounded. The Sigil burned warm against his chest, vibrating in sharp, short bursts that almost felt like flinches. Not fear. Recognition.

Lucar bowed again, serene. “Forgive my boldness. I speak only to keep you safe.”

But Boaz realized then, with a chilling, sickening certainty, Lucar didn’t fear the Sigil. He feared what the Sigil might undo. He feared unity. And he was here to break it.

For several breaths, the council chamber existed in a suspended state. Terrans murmured in broken clusters, the gallery shifted like uneasy stone, Boaz standing rigid with the Sigil trembling faintly against his chest. The hum of the mountain, so calm that morning, had gone thin and wary. Ghor raised his hammer to call order. Before it struck, Lucar stepped forward.

“Wardens,” he said gently, “I have spoken my concern. You must speak yours. I only ask you weigh the risk of haste against the comfort of caution. Nothing more.” It was almost humble. Almost.

The younger woman with geometric-etched armor stood. “We must discuss,” she said. “Too much stir. Too much fast change.”

The moss-marked Warden bristled. “No. Flame clean. Rot flee. We see truth with own eyes.”

The one-eyed veteran shook his head slowly. “Truth can trick eyes. Shadows… lie.”

Aldryn stepped forward before the argument could spiral. “Then let the bearer speak to the matter, not the man who has done nothing but sow doubt.”

Lucar turned his head with a soft, almost affectionate smile. “Aldryn. Must every voice that disagrees with you be accused? Is disagreement now corruption?” The words found their place perfectly: defensive, wounded, turning the accusation inside-out.

A low rumble rose in the chamber. Terrans exchanged uneasy looks. Boaz saw it. More importantly, the Sigil felt it. The vibration against his chest sharpened a fraction more. Not pain, but wrongness, like metal tested beyond tolerance.

He swallowed hard. “Lucar… what do you want the Wardens to do?”

Lucar paused. The hall quieted, waiting, breath held.

“What I want,” he said softly, “is simple. That you leave this place with their blessing, not their fear. That they guard their halls wisely while you travel. That they… choose caution over impulse.”

The pleasantness was convincing. But something behind it, behind him, was not. Boaz’s breath hitched. Lucar’s reflection in the polished basalt floor lagged behind him by half a heartbeat. Not much. Barely perceptible. But wrong. Boaz blinked hard. The reflection caught up, matching him perfectly. Kiera sucked in a breath beside him so quietly it barely stirred the air. She’d seen it too.

Lucar shifted slightly to address the Wardens, and his shadow bent the wrong way, drifting toward a pillar instead of the torch behind him. Just a fraction. A shiver of darkness where it should not move.

The younger apprentices gasped. The copper-ringed elder flinched. Ghor’s eyes narrowed to slits. Lucar didn’t react. He didn’t notice. Or refused to. “Warden Ghor,” he continued smoothly, “you are wise beyond any surface-born. You know haste is danger. The deep should think long, speak slow…”

“Shadow,” Kegh muttered from the side, voice tight. “His shadow turn wrong.” A ripple of alarm ran through the gallery, rising like heat.

Lucar finally paused, confusion, then faint annoyance flickering across his face. He turned slightly, as if following their eyes, and the reflection matched him perfectly again. Too perfectly. Like a correction.

Ghor’s voice boomed through the hall: “Enough.” The word cracked the tension like a stone splitting under frost. “Council vote now,” he said, not looking away from Lucar. “Outsider speak much. But outsider’s shadow lie. We choose: stay or go.”

Lucar didn’t flinch. He folded his hands neatly. “If my presence troubles you, Warden, I will abide by your judgment. I am a guest here, nothing more.”

Ghor slammed the hammer to the stone. “Wardens speak!”

The council broke into overlapping grunts of Terran deliberation. Short, sharp syllables bounced across the hall. It was not orderly. Not unified. The youngest wanted caution. The copper-ringed elder hesitated, torn between gratitude for the mountain’s restoration and fear of compounding risks. The moss-marked Warden argued fiercely in Boaz’s defense. The veteran with the scar spoke only once, voice like gravel dragged across metal.“Shadow lie. Deep not trust shadow.”

The vote came close. Closer than any of them expected. Three elders demanded Lucar stay under watch. Three demanded he be expelled immediately. The tie fell to Ghor: eldest, hardest, the one whose doubt Lucar had nearly captured. His jaw clenched. Then he struck the hammer down.

“Out,” he growled. “Not Terran. Not deep-kin. Not stay.”

A hush fell like dust. Breath left the room in one, collective exhale. Lucar bowed. Not resentfully. Not defeated. But with the grace of a man who had won something intangible rather than lost his seat.

“I understand,” he said. “Fear is a natural companion to change. I take no offense.” He straightened, meeting each Warden’s gaze with unbroken composure. Only when he turned toward the fellowship did the polite sorrow in his eyes shift to something else. Something far, far colder.

“I will return,” he said softly. “When truth burns less brightly.”

The words drifted down like warm ash, settling over every Terran heart. Something in the room tightened: awe from some, dread from others. Lucar bowed once more, cloak sweeping behind him as he moved toward the grand doors. His reflection followed half a beat late. His shadow bent wrong again.

Only Boaz saw the Sigil’s light flare in response, a silent recoil. The doors closed. And the chamber exhaled in relief and fear in equal measure.

The council hall emptied slowly, like water draining from a cracked basin. Terrans filed out in murmuring clusters. Some seemed relieved, some troubled, some glancing over their shoulders at the sealed doors as though expecting Lucar to reappear between the seams of the stone.

Ghor and the other elders stayed long enough to offer curt nods and assurances that the company would still depart with Terran blessing. But their eyes were wary, scanning the shadowed corners where torchlight warped. Finally, even they withdrew, voices fading down the higher tunnels. Only the company remained.

Jaxson let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “That man can talk circles around a storm,” he muttered. “And make you feel like the wind was your idea.”

Theo rubbed both hands down his face. “I liked him. In Beltin. I liked him.” He shook his head. “What was I seeing?”

“What he wanted you to see,” Lyra said, arms crossed tight. “Same thing he wanted the council to see.”

Kiera didn’t speak. She stepped closer to Boaz instead, watching him with quiet worry. His hand was pressed hard against the Sigil, as though steadying it, or keeping it from slipping into some deeper tremor. The burr in its hum was sharper now, humming against his ribs like a plucked string.

“Boaz,” she said softly. “Breathe.” He started to nod when the air behind them stirred. A soft footstep. Too soft.

Lyra’s head snapped toward the hallway. “No,” she whispered. “He’s gone, the doors closed behind…”

But Lucar stepped from between two pillars as though he’d been carved there all along.

The company reacted instantly. Jaxson’s hands went to his blades. Theo raised a half-formed rune. Lyra’s illusion shimmered at her fingertips. Thorne crouched low, teeth bared.

Lucar lifted one palm, serene as still water. “Peace, friends. I am not here to quarrel.”

Boaz’s voice came out low. “How did you get in here?”

Lucar tilted his head, almost amused. “These halls have many passages. Old ones. Forgotten ones. Durn-Kelmar was once a maze of knowledge, not a fortress.”

His cloak settled around him in a slow wave, and the torchlight behind him seemed to blink, just once, as if something stepped between flame and stone faster than the eye could track.

He walked closer, though not within reach. His expression was mild, even fond. “Boaz,” he said. “I hoped to speak to you without the noise of the council. They were… stirred today.”

“By you,” Boaz said.

Lucar’s smile deepened, approving. “You understand influence more than you admit.” He circled slightly, not predatory, but like a man evaluating a piece of craftsmanship he respected. “Two leaves tempered. Harmony attempted. A miracle, by any measure.”

Boaz tightened his grip on the Sigil. “What do you want from me?”

For the first time, Lucar’s eyes brightened with something unmasked: hunger, or longing, or grief so old it had soured into resolve. He stepped close enough that his whisper touched only Boaz’s ear.

“The thorn is already in you.”

The words slid under the skin like cold metal. The Sigil flared, a brief, bright pulse against Boaz’s chest.

Boaz didn’t step back. “If you call this a thorn, then you don’t know the fire.”

Lucar’s lips curved. “Fire spreads all the same.”

He straightened, mask restored, the polite traveler, the gentle historian, the scholar who’d shared warm bread in Beltin. For everyone except Boaz, the illusion was perfect.

Kiera placed a hand on Boaz’s forearm, steady but fearless. “You wanted him afraid,” she told Lucar quietly. “But fear isn’t what rules him.”

Lucar regarded her with mild curiosity. “I never try to rule anyone, dear Kiera. I simply illuminate possibilities.” He turned his gaze back to Boaz. “Some men run from illumination. Others burn.”

Jaxson scowled. “Get out.”

Lucar’s brows lifted in genuine amusement. “Gladly. You will not see me again until the road demands it.” He stepped backward, and his shadow did not follow. It lingered for half a beat, then snapped into place with a soft shudder. Then he was gone. No door. No sound. Just absence.

Theo looked at the space where he’d stood. “That… wasn’t normal.”

“No,” Aldryn said, stepping forward at last, voice low, troubled. “And neither were his words.” He tapped his staff lightly on the stone as if grounding himself. “He rattled me. More than I care to admit.”

Lyra let the illusion fade from her hand. “He rattled everyone.”

“But he failed,” Jaxson said stubbornly. “Council threw him out.”

Aldryn shook his head. “He didn’t come to win a vote. He came to plant doubt.”

Boaz breathed slowly, letting the Sigil rest flat against his palm. The hum was still unsettled, but quieter now, as though recovering from a blow. “He wanted to divide us,” Boaz said. “But we’re still here.”

Kiera nodded, fingers still lightly on his arm. “Then leave the fear with him. We walk together.”

Theo exhaled in agreement. Lyra smirked, brittle but breathing again. Jaxson clapped Boaz’s shoulder with a long, steadying squeeze. Thorne brushed against Boaz’s thigh, grounding him with the weight of his presence. Boaz looked toward the sealed doors. Lucar was gone. For now.

But the dissonance in the Sigil lingered: a warning, a promise, or the echo of a thorn bush searching with its roots. Boaz straightened his shoulders.

“We walk together,” he repeated softly. “Whatever waits next.”

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