"That's what's bothering me. Something is strange."
Elena, the fifth in their squad and the quietest so far, finally spoke, her voice muffled behind the scarf around her mouth. "Are we sure it's not a misread from the terrain? That slope might be amplifying echoes or mana spread. We've had false positives before."
"No," Jules said, shaking his head slowly. "That pulse wasn't natural. It didn't scatter like windborne mana. It locked on for a second."
Gellard checked the readings again. The glyphs on the tablet screen pulsed once more—no longer in irregular bursts, but in a rhythm. A slow, deliberate beat. Almost… breathing.
He frowned.
"It's not fluctuating wildly," he muttered. "It's stabilizing. Like something on the other side is syncing its frequency. Like it's aware of the tag markers."
That made everyone pause.
