[Morning]
•South Road Forest•
[Gale's POV]
The book closed with a soft, final thump, its cover settling against the pages like a door shutting on the past. The white void around us dissolved instantly, and our surroundings snapped back to normal—the worn wooden planks of the wagon floor, the creak of wheels turning, the familiar scent of horses and forest air.
None of us spoke.
The silence was heavy, thick with everything we had just witnessed. Two centuries of history, compressed into images and voices and truth, still hung in the air around us like smoke after a fire. Dark mana stones. Thaumamorphs. Flesh Hunters. The words no longer held mystery—they held weight.
