A fortnight after the Gathering, the orchard shimmered with a different energy. Not one of celebration nor urgency, but anticipation—the kind that rests between breaths, where silence holds meaning.
A soft murmur moved through the lower groves. Birds paused their songs. Roots shifted beneath the soil. Even the trees tilted subtly eastward, as if listening.
Something was coming.
No caravan. No flare. Just a feeling.
Tian Shen was the first to name it.
"The Unfinished," he said.
Ji Luan frowned, setting down his brush. "Unfinished what?"
"Not what," Tian Shen replied. "Who."
...
It began as mist.
A pale fog that drifted from the east. Not heavy. Not damp. It did not cling to skin or saturate cloth. It simply... existed. Where it passed, silence followed. Not empty, but expectant.
Lan, now leading the Listener initiates, stood watch at the orchard's edge. Her breath caught as shapes began to emerge.
