The days bled together.
Arthur spoke only when meaning demanded it, and meaning was growing harder to trust. Halftide's runes murmured endlessly through the dome's metal bones, a language more intricate than words could capture. He paced its corridors like a ghost bound by purpose, eyes narrowed, his mind tuned to whispers he wasn't certain anyone else heard. Each flare and ripple carried notes, subtle and sharp, like needles pressed gently beneath his skull.
He mapped them, not on parchment or in tidy runes, but deep behind his eyes, where memories twisted into something stranger, something alive. The patterns repeated at times, irregular yet deliberate, as though driven by an intelligence dancing just beyond understanding. Mana didn't drift here; it writhed. It expanded like roots seeking water, like fingers searching flesh. It moved, breathed, and slowly, insidiously, it changed.
