52: "The Ground That Speaks Back"

There were no cities now—only places where people listened.

The districts still had names, but they were said differently, with breath between syllables, as if each word could break into something more tender if rushed.

Cael sat beneath a bridge built during the Control Eras, watching moss slowly overtake a concrete pylon. Children now swam in the river that once carried surveillance cables. One of them waved.

He did not wave back.

He nodded.

And the child smiled bigger, as if that was the real language they both shared: recognition, not interruption.

A message arrived.

Not on a shard.

On paper.

Unfolded by wind.

He caught it mid-air.

"The soil beneath Sector V hums. Bring no tools. Only memory."

Cael stood.

He knew who had written it.

And where he needed to go.

—

Yara had already arrived.