The wind had a strange weight that morning, as if the whole forest was holding its breath. Wenrel felt it before she heard anything — that quiet pressure at the base of the skull that usually meant a creature nearby was bending the hairs of the Veil. She didn't flinch. She just slowed her steps, let her senses settle, and listened.
The woods around her were too still. No wings drummed overhead. No bark crackled in the distance. Even the Whisper Vines, usually restless at dawn, hung limp across the branches like someone had muted their instinct to twitch. Wenrel pressed a hand to one of them. It didn't recoil. It didn't greet her. It was asleep in a way plants shouldn't be.
That was when she saw the feathers — dark gold, almost metallic, scattered in a loose trail across the moss. Each one pulsed with a faint memory of heat, like they had just fallen a minute ago. None of the creatures she knew left feathers like this. They were too symmetrical. Too engineered.
A shadow slid between the trees ahead, tall and deliberate. Wenrel stayed where she was. Fear didn't move her, but curiosity always had. The shape stepped into view slowly, as if it had been waiting for her to notice it. A man, or something wearing the idea of one. His presence bent the light around the edges, not violently, just enough to feel wrong. He had the posture of someone used to being watched.
His voice didn't echo. It just settled into the air with a low clarity. "You follow the wrong threads."
Wenrel didn't look away. "Then point me toward the right ones."
He stopped a few paces from her, the feathers on the ground brightening for a moment, like they recognized him. His face was a calm mask, but not empty — more like he had learned stillness the way others learn a craft. Ancient, but not old. Familiar in a way that bothered her.
"You learned to listen to the Veil," he said. "But not to the silences inside it."
A tremor passed through the forest — not loud, not dangerous, just enough to make the leaves quiver like they were waking up again. Wenrel felt the pulse beneath her feet stall for a heartbeat, as if the world had forgotten how to move. She steadied herself. The man didn't.
"You're not from Sunspire," she said.
"No." His answer was simple. "But Sunspire listens to me."
She studied him, weighing every detail — the constructed symmetry of his stance, the faint distortion of the air close to his skin, the way the forest reacted more to his quiet than his presence. He was tied to the Pulse. Not a wielder. More like a reminder of what the Pulse used to be before Sunspire learned to breathe.
"What do you want?" Wenrel asked.
"To see if you're ready." His eyes dipped toward the threads curling behind her shoulders, soft and dim. "You've touched things you weren't meant to reach. But the Veil allowed it. That means something."
Another tremor rolled through the ground. This one sharper, pulling a gasp from the Whisper Vines as they stretched awake, jittering with confused energy. The spell of the forest's stillness broke, and the ambient noise returned all at once — chirps, rustles, the tiny whirring buzz of a Leafcarver's wings drifting overhead.
The man turned away, his outline blurring slightly as if the world was pushing him out. "The Pulse will stop again," he said. "Longer next time. When it does, follow the silence."
He took one step and vanished. No burst, no ripple of magic. Just gone, like walking through an unseen door.
Wenrel stood very still for a moment, letting the forest settle back into its rhythm. Her heart wasn't racing. It never did. But something inside her felt different — like her threads were listening harder than she was.
She crouched and picked up one of the feathers. It cooled in her hand, losing its glow, but the shape remained impossibly perfect. Not natural. Not crafted. Something between.
"Follow the silence," she whispered.
She tucked the feather into her belt and walked deeper into the forest, where the Pulse had faltered. Sunspire felt awake again, but not comforted. The Veil buzzed with a tension she hadn't felt in any of her previous awakenings.
Something had changed.
Something had started.
And this time, the silence was watching her back.