The sun had barely risen when the knock came.
Not at the door — at the window.
Kael blinked awake, wrapped in a blanket, Echo curled against his legs like an anchor made of warmth and breath. The tapping continued, soft but persistent. Rhythmic.
He sat up.
Outside the glass was a Noctowl, feathers streaked with age and soot, one eye pale with cataract, the other fixed on him with uncanny precision. A satchel hung from its neck.
Echo stirred beside him. "That's a League courier bird. But old. Retired."
Kael opened the window.
The Noctowl extended one claw. A sealed letter dangled from it, wax still unbroken, the seal pressed with a sunburst glyph.
Not ❂.
A different sun.
Split into eight points.
Kael took the letter.
The Noctowl nodded once, then launched into the morning sky, vanishing without a sound.
He didn't move right away.
Echo said, "You don't recognize the glyph, do you?"
"No," he murmured. "But it recognized me."
They sat at the table while Kael unfolded the parchment.
Inside was a map.
Hand-drawn.
Old paper. Faded charcoal. Spiraling lines radiating out from a single central glyph — the sun with eight points. Around it: landmarks that didn't appear on any League chart.
A mountain range with no name.
A tower marked only by an "X."
A trail curling into what looked like a crater.
And at the bottom, scrawled in a quick, almost hesitant hand:
There's another.
And they're waiting.
No signature.
No sender.
No threat.
Just a declaration.
Kael folded the paper slowly.
His chest was quiet.
Not tight.
Not panicked.
Just aware.
Echo watched him.
"You knew the story wasn't done," she said.
"I did," he replied. "But I thought I'd have longer before the next page turned."
Echo nosed at the map. "This wasn't sent by the League. They'd never use this kind of courier. Or this glyph."
Kael studied the eight-point sun again.
"Have you seen it before?"
Echo hesitated.
Then shook her head.
"No," she said. "But I've felt it."
They brought the map to Nathaniel that afternoon.
He studied it with narrowed eyes, jaw tight, fingers tracing each line without touching it.
"This isn't just a trail," he said.
Kael raised a brow. "Then what is it?"
"It's a resonance path," Nathaniel said. "Each mark isn't just a location. It's a node. A convergence point."
Kael leaned in. "For what?"
Nathaniel met his eyes.
"For another story."
They sat in silence for a while after that.
No declarations. No plans.
Just questions waiting for answers.
Then Echo said what they were all thinking.
"If there's another — someone like Kael — then they're either walking toward something…"
"Or trying to survive it," Kael finished.
Nathaniel nodded. "And they want you to find them."
That night, Kael walked the perimeter of the field behind the cottage.
The wind rustled through tall grass, calm but not empty.
He looked down at the stars reflected in a puddle near the fence line.
They looked different now.
Not because the sky had changed.
Because he had.
Echo padded beside him.
"You don't have to go," she said gently. "Not yet."
"I know," Kael said. "But I think they already know me. Even if I don't know them."
Echo tilted her head. "That doesn't scare you?"
He smiled faintly.
"No. Because this time, I'm not walking toward a mystery."
He folded the map again and slipped it into his pack.
"I'm walking toward a person."