They emerged from the chamber slowly.
Kael led the way, his steps steady but measured. Elira followed, the twins close against her chest. Above them, the mist parted in long veils, shimmering with the residue of what had been awakened.
At the edge of the ruin stood figures, cloaked, silent, waiting.
Not Watchers.
Not veiled seers.
These were human.
Kael stopped. The air between them was charged, not with tension, but expectation.
One stepped forward. A woman, her robes marked with unfamiliar sigils, her hair streaked with silver and coal. She did not bow.
But she did not threaten.
"We felt the rupture," she said. "And the flame."
Elira's arms tightened around the twins. "You crossed into the Lower Realm?"
The woman's eyes didn't leave Nyra and Riven. "We didn't cross. We were born here."
Kael blinked. "That's not possible."
The woman raised a hand. "Not possible in your kingdom. In your sky. But here, beneath the Veil, there are more of us. Fewer than there were. More than you knew."
Behind her, others stepped forward, young and old, armored and plain, bearing the same sigils and the same calm weight in their eyes.
"We've waited a long time," the woman said. "For the realm to awaken again. For the ones it would call."
She looked at the twins.
"For the children who would walk the edge of the known. And carry us forward.