The sand accepted their weight without resistance, firm beneath their boots yet faintly warm, as if retaining memory of every force that had ever passed through it. Each step sent shallow ripples outward that intersected with older patterns already etched into the basin, and when those ripples crossed, the air shimmered and bent, briefly revealing fragments of other moments layered atop the present. Lindarion caught glimpses without slowing: a titan kneeling here in an age before kingdoms, a circle of robed figures burning their own names out of history, a star falling silently into the ground and never rising again.
Nysha felt it too, though less clearly. Her breath came slower, measured, as she forced her mind to remain anchored. "This place is trying to tell stories," she said. "Or rewrite them."
"It records consequence," Lindarion replied. "Interpretation is left to whoever survives standing here."
