At dawn, Kael woke to find the ruins glowing.
Not the trees, not the moss, but the stone itself. The runes Elira had etched shimmered faintly with blue light. The ones already carved into the walls glowed in response.
He reached out to touch one.
It pulsed beneath his fingers.
Elira joined him a moment later. "It's the twins," she said. "They stirred just before it began."
Kael turned toward them. The children were asleep, but the glow intensified near where they lay.
The realm wasn't just reacting.
It was responding.
The ground beneath the ruins had begun to hum.
Kael closed his eyes, listening, not with ears, but with whatever had awakened within him.
And he understood:
The realm was teaching.
Not with words, but memory.
Not with motion, but resonance.
It was passing on something, something older than magic. A remembrance carried through stone and song.
Elira placed her hand beside his on the rune.
Together, they felt it.
The pulse of inheritance.
Not a gift.
A recognition.