The hum surges so hard my pulse stutters.
I can’t answer that. Not without breaking everything open.
Martin clears his throat. “You coming for dinner tonight, Ash?”
I should refuse. Distance is the only thing that might stabilize this.
Jo looks at me now, expectant.
The glyphs throb once, hard enough that heat spreads down my arm.
I meet her eyes. The resonance locks.
Not myth. Not destiny.
More powerful than I ever could have imagined.
“Yeah,” I hear myself say. “I’ll be there.”
Her smile deepens, unperformed.
The hum shifts. No calmer but focused.
This isn’t a passing spike. This is convergence.
“Now, go on up to the house,” Martin orders Josephine. “Grandma’s waiting.”
I tip my hat and turn Winnie down the fence line before control slips entirely.
The vibration doesn’t fade. It harmonizes. And for the first time in more than seventy years, I know something has shifted.
Not in the mountains.
In me.
Chapter
Two
JOSEPHINE
The valley looks smaller than I remember.
Not less beautiful. Just… measurable.
I roll the window down and let the dry air push through the car. Sage. Dust. Sun-baked fence posts. The kind of place people call empty because they don’t know how to read it.
Most of Nevada is public land. Restricted land. Posted land.
The Starborn Range sits to the west, darker than it should be for midday. It’s always been like that. When I was little, I assumed it was proof of some unknown malevolence. Like the shadow under the bed or behind the closet door.
As an adult, I blame elevation shifts. Wind shear. Storm systems trapped by geography.
There are explanations for most things.
I pass one of the red-and-white government signs Ash warned me about.Deadly force authorized.
It should bother me more than it does.
