The mist didn't lift, but it changed.
It grew thinner, less choking, more like breath than shroud.
Where before the air had stilled around them, now it moved. Not with wind, but with purpose.
They felt it more than saw it. A pulse like memory guiding them upward, away from the hollow and toward the waiting ridge.
Sarissa leaned on her broken spear like a crutch. Her leg bled sluggishly beneath bandages fashioned from Miles' shirt. Dee limped ahead, refusing to be carried. Its scales were scuffed and dulled, but its eyes remained sharp.
Miles walked behind them, silent, one hand trailing along the roots that curled up the slope like stairways half-swallowed by time, his other hand flexing rhythmically, as if feeling for something he couldn't quite name.
The silence between them was choked with reverence. The forest was quiet now, but not empty. It watched, and not all the watching felt hostile this time.
