Raerin didn't sleep that night.
After Eldhar's whispered warning, he stood at the edge of the camp beneath the ashen sky, watching the flames of the celebration flicker and twist like distant spirits. The weight of those final words—"the thing that killed your people was but a shadow"—echoed again and again in his thoughts.
Mira found him at dawn, silent and unmoving.
"You heard something, didn't you?" she asked, stepping beside him.
Raerin nodded slowly, his voice rough. "The city didn't fall by accident. Eldhar says something worse is moving beneath this land."
Mira's jaw tightened. "Then we're not safe here."
"No," he agreed. "But we're not ready to keep running, either."
The next day, the four colony leaders convened in the pavilion. Raerin, Mira, Kedes, and Jonan stood to one side, granted an audience but not a voice—yet.
