It works for a few minutes. Then she hums and the sound crawls up my spine. It’s not loud, but it has weight. A vibration that settles in the bones instead of the ears. The desert seems to hold around it.
“Rverre,” I say softly.
She blinks, startled, like she’s been pulled back from somewhere far away. Her wings twitch once before she tucks them tighter.
“Sorry,” she says, but her attention doesn’t fully return. Her eyes keep tracking the horizon—no, not the horizon. Something lower. Something angled.
“Is it louder?” Illadon asks.
She nods. “Yes.”
Korr slows without stopping—easing the pace enough to keep us from fracturing into separate orbits. His head turns slightly, scanning, but his attention keeps snapping back to Rverre.
“How?” he asks.
She frowns, searching for words.
“Not loud-loud. Just… closer.” Her nose wrinkles. “And it doesn’t like waiting.”
That makes my chest tighten.
“Does it feel dangerous?” I ask.
She shakes her head, then hesitates.
“No. Not bad.” Another pause. “But not patient.”
I swallow and force my mind into what I know, basic sciences. Environmental feedback. Geothermal resonance. Subsurface structures interacting with movement and sound. The city reacting to vibration, mass, heat.
We’re disturbing something, but that doesn’t mean it’s intentional.
“It might be responding to us,” I say, more to myself than anyone else. “Movement. Pressure. Sound. Large bodies crossing unstable ground can?—”
Rverre stops walking. She just… stops, feet planted, head tilted. The hum cuts off mid-note, leaving the air too quiet.
“It’s not calling,” she says slowly.
Korr turns fully toward her. “Then what is it doing?”
She looks up at him, eyes bright and unsettled. “Listening.”
Illadon’s hand hovers near her elbow without touching. “Rverre?”
She takes a step forward—off our line, angling toward a darker seam of stone I hadn’t noticed before. I move instinctively, catching her shoulder before she can gain momentum. She startles, breath hitching.
“Sorry,” she says again, but this time her voice is tight. “It’s pulling. Just a little.”
Korr steps in immediately, placing himself between her and the direction she’d started toward—not blocking, anchoring.
“We adjust,” he says. “Shorter intervals. Tighter spacing.”
I nod, though my thoughts are spiraling. This isn’t a beacon drawing her forward anymore. It’s feedback. Reaction. The land responding to us as a whole—four bodies, mixed blood, shared movement.
I don’t think that the city is summoning Rverre, it’s noticing us. Rverre presses her palm briefly to the sand, then pulls back as if startled by the heat. Her wings rustle, restless.
“It’s closer,” she says again. “And it knows we’re here.”
I don’t like the way Korr’s jaw tightens any more than I like the way my ankle throbs harder, as if in agreement.
