On the ridge, Shuang's circle stamped their rhythm into the stone. Sparks pulsed with each strike — faint, halting, but present. The children pressed their palms to the rock, eyes squeezed shut, feeling the vibration instead of hearing it. The Guard slammed their blades in steady cadence.
The apprentice wept, not from fear now but from relief. "It's still moving," she mouthed. She couldn't hear her own voice, but the others nodded, reading the beat in her lips, the spark in her palm.
Shuang gritted his teeth and pressed his spark into the mountain. If they cut sound, we answer with earth. If they cut earth, we answer with fire. If they cut fire, we answer with each other.
Slowly, the glow began to stretch again. Towers on the ridge flared. Down in the valleys faint lines of gold lit like veins through dark rock. The silence pressed harder — but it could not erase the pulse.
The Origin Trembles
