The air tasted like tal and old smoke.
Draven stood at the front of the column, watching dawn spread across the ash plains. Six weeks had passed since Feyra's light touched the world, and already the land looked different—green crept through the burned soil, stubborn grass pushing through cracks in the glass.
Behind him, the army moved in rhythm.
Not the rigid lockstep of the Dominion. Sothing looser, more alive. Six humans marched for every four beasts—the new formation Brenn had drilled into them until it felt natural. A Stonehide walked between two infantry squads, its steady breath matching theirs. Servitors hauled supply carts alongside soldiers who shared the weight when the ground turned rough.
Mira walked her horse near the middle ranks, her falcon perched on the saddle. She'd been counting formations all morning, making notes in her worn journal.
"They're not fighting it anymore," she said when Draven fell back to ride beside her.
"Fighting what?"
"The rhythm." She gestured at a squad ahead where a soldier adjusted his pack strap in ti with a Servitor's stride. "Two weeks ago, they had to think about it. Now they just... breathe together."
Draven watched the formation ripple like water as they crossed a dry streambed. "Good. We'll need that before winter."
The plains stretched endlessly ahead, gray and flat. What had once been fertile land now looked like the surface of a dead moon—ash layered so thick it muffled footsteps. But even here, Feyra's influence showed. Tiny shoots of grass poked through the waste, following the army's path like a green scar healing behind them.
By midday, the heat made the horizon shimr.
Joran rode up on a supply wagon, wiping sweat from his forehead. His portable forge rattled behind him, still warm from the morning's work.
"Found sothing," he called out.
Draven raised a hand. The column slowed, then stopped. The transition was smooth—squads settling into rest positions without orders, beasts lowering themselves to the ground while handlers distributed water.
Joran jumped down from the wagon and led them off the main path. Fifty paces into the ash field, a dark shape jutted from the ground.
"Dominion furnace," Brenn said, crouching beside it. Half the structure had collapsed into the soil, but the signature blue-black tal was unmistakable. Soulsteel, old and cracked.
Joran knelt and brushed ash away from a section of exposed pipe. The tal underneath was different—darker, almost crystalline. He tapped it with his hamr.
The sound rang out clear and pure, holding in the air longer than it should have. Then it changed, deepening into sothing that felt more like a vibration in the chest than a noise in the ears.
"What is that?" Mira asked.
Joran hit it again, softer. The sa effect—the note held, then shifted, like it was rembering the impact rather than just echoing it.
"I don't know." He pulled out a small chisel and carefully pried loose a shard. The piece ca away clean, edges smooth as glass. When he held it up to the light, faint patterns swirled inside—blue mixing with gold, neither color quite stable.
Draven watched the shard pulse faintly in Joran's palm. "Dominion tal shouldn't do that."
"It's not pure Soulsteel," Joran said slowly. "There's sothing else in it. Sothing that absorbed the resonance from this place—maybe from the battles here, maybe from before." He wrapped the shard carefully in cloth. "I need to run tests, but... I think this tal has mory."
Brenn frowned. "mory of what?"
"Everything it's touched. Every frequency, every impact." Joran looked back at the buried furnace. "If I'm right, we can use this. Forge it into sothing that rembers our rhythm instead of theirs."
Draven nodded once. "Collect what you can. But mark the site—we're not excavating in hostile territory."
They moved on, leaving a small cairn of white stones to mark the location. As the column reford, Mira noticed several soldiers glancing back at the furnace, uneasy.
"They don't like it," she said quietly.
"Neither do I," Draven replied. "But we need every advantage."
The sun dropped toward the western ridge as they made camp.
Tents rose in concentric circles—human shelters on the outer ring, beast resting areas in the center where Feyra's distant influence could reach them all. Fires sparked to life as cooks began preparing evening rations.
Draven walked the periter while Brenn organized watch rotations. The ash here was thicker, older. It crunched underfoot like frost, and the wind carried no sll at all—just emptiness.
At the eastern edge of camp, he stopped.
The horizon looked wrong. Not broken or burned, just... still. Too still. Even the heat shimr had faded with the sun, leaving the distance flat and dead.
Mira joined him, her falcon settled on her shoulder now, head tucked.
"Feel that?" she asked.
Draven nodded slowly. The air pressure had changed—subtle, but there. Like the mont before a storm, except the sky was clear.
Then the ground moved.
Not a shake—a ripple. A single, slow pulse that traveled through the ash like a wave through water. It lasted maybe two seconds, then stopped.
Behind them, beasts lifted their heads. A few Servitors shuffled nervously. One of the Stonehides rumbled low in its chest.
Brenn appeared, hand on his sword. "Quake?"
"Maybe." Draven crouched and pressed his palm against the ground. The ash was warm—warr than it should be this far from any lava flows. "Or sothing else."
The tremor didn't repeat.
After a long mont, Brenn exhaled. "Aftershock from the Serpent fight, probably. This whole region's still settling."
Draven stood but didn't take his hand off his sword hilt. "Probably."
They returned to camp, but Draven noticed Mira lingering at the edge, staring out into the dark plains. When he glanced back, she was writing in her journal by lamplight.
He couldn't see the words from this distance, but he knew what they'd say.
The ground listens.
Night settled over the camp like a held breath.
Fires burned low. Soldiers spoke in murmurs. Sowhere near the center, a handler humd a lullaby to a restless Servitor, and the beast's breathing gradually slowed to match.
Joran sat by his forge wagon, turning the mory ore shard over in his hands. It caught the firelight and threw back colors that didn't quite match—blue becoming gold becoming sothing else entirely.
"You should sleep," Draven said, approaching quietly.
"Can't." Joran held up the shard. "Look at this. Really look."
Draven leaned closer. Inside the crystal structure, tiny veins pulsed—so faint he almost missed them. They moved like blood through capillaries, following no pattern he recognized.
"It's alive," Joran whispered. "Not thinking, not aware—but alive. This tal rembers everything it touched, and now it's trying to rember us."
"Can you control it?"
"I think so. Maybe." Joran set the shard down carefully. "But I don't know if I should. What if we forge weapons from this and they rember the wrong things? What if they rember the Dominion?"
Draven was quiet for a mont. "Then we teach them sothing better."
Far to the south, beyond where any scout had ventured, the ash plains stretched into darkness. And deep below, in collapsed mines and forgotten vaults, sothing else stirred—not waking, not yet, but dreaming in the dark.
The ground pulsed once more, too deep for anyone to feel.
And the mory in the tal listened.
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