The soil here didn't just breathe… It listened.
I knelt in the middle of a sloped rice terrace, my hands pressed to the cold earth as Shadow circled nearby, his pawprints leaving no sound. It had rained two days ago, just enough to soak the top layer, but not enough to wash out the metal buried deep below.
The southern winds bit at the edge of my cloak. I didn't feel it. My fingers moved in slow, patient lines—reading the iron content in the soil like a second language. A blade. A sickle. Three rusted nails from a collapsed grain shed. The earth was full of memory.
And memory was malleable.
I curled my fingers inward, drawing the metal from the ground in silent threads. It obeyed without resistance—coiling like snakes just beneath the surface, waiting. Once set, these threads would slice through ankles, tear through cart wheels, pierce the belly of anyone foolish enough to charge without watching their step.
