Location:Seven Peaks — Spirit Garden, Verdant Spire, Observation Terrace
Date/Time:TC1854.01.21-22
Elian woke before dawn and knew the tree was calling him.
Not calling — that was too loud a word for what it did. The tree didn't call. It hummed. A slow, deep vibration beneath everything else, like the mountain's heartbeat had found a rhythm and was asking if anyone was listening. He'd felt it since the golden rain, months ago. A thump. Then a pause. Then another thump. Too slow to be alive in the way people understood alive, but too steady to be stone or soil or the formation network that Silas maintained with such fussy precision.
Something beneath all of that. Something old.
