They did not slow.
The smoke ahead no longer rose in careful pulses. It bled into the sky in uneven streams, dragged sideways by unsettled wind. Shouts carried between trees, overlapping and strained. No one was issuing clean commands now.
Kael reached the treeline first and dropped low behind a split trunk.
Below the slope, a narrow transport path cut between two walls of dark stone. Three heavy wagons stood angled awkwardly across it. Iron-reinforced. Sealed. Built for containment, not ceremony.
One wagon leaned dangerously toward a fractured edge of ground. Its front wheel had sunk where the ridge had shifted. Circle operatives surrounded it, attempting to brace the frame with poles and wedges.
"They forced weight through unstable rock," Foret whispered.
"They thought the ridge would obey," Seraphina said quietly.
A deep metallic impact echoed from inside the tilted wagon.
Not wood.
Not wheel.
Something inside striking the interior brace.
Kael felt the glass token burn sharply against his chest.
Recognition.
"They are not empty," he said.
The former Circle man swallowed. "They never were."
Another crack split across the slope above the convoy. Smaller than before, but close enough to send gravel cascading down.
The nearest operative flinched.
The center officer from the ridge descended rapidly toward the convoy. His control was thinner now.
"You cannot interfere," the former Circle man muttered.
Kael did not respond.
Seraphina stepped forward into the open.
The air changed around her.
The tilted wagon steadied slightly.
Every Circle operative froze.
The officer's eyes locked on her.
"You destabilize containment," he said sharply.
"I stabilize consequence," she replied.
Another metallic strike from inside.
Stronger.
The wagon shuddered.
"Reinforce it," the officer snapped.
No one moved immediately.
The third strike cracked the iron brace along the wagon's side.
Wood splintered.
The entire frame dropped hard against the fractured ground.
The seal split.
Light spilled from within.
Not flame.
Not reflection.
Pale.
Cold.
Intent.
Every operative stepped back instinctively.
The officer did not.
"Contain it," he ordered.
The front panel broke fully open.
Inside was not a coffin.
Not a body laid in stillness.
It was a containment cradle built of carved wood and etched metal.
And within it....
A figure.
Restrained.
Awake.
The restraints were not chains. They were sigil lines burned faintly into pale skin, glowing weakly where they bound wrist and throat.
The figure's eyes were open.
Not wild.
Not confused.
Focused.
Quiet.
The former Circle man took a step back. "They advanced the division process," he whispered. "They altered structural memory."
The officer's jaw tightened. "Necessary," he said.
"For what?" Seraphina asked.
He did not answer.
The figure inside the cradle inhaled slowly.
The sound carried farther than it should have.
A collective stillness fell over the transport path.
The pale figure turned its head.
Not toward the officer.
Toward Seraphina.
The ground trembled faintly.
Not violently.
Decisively.
The sigils binding the figure flickered.
One dimmed.
Another brightened.
The officer stepped forward at last.
"Reinforce the sequence," he ordered.
An operative approached reluctantly with a small metal rod etched in matching sigils.
The pale figure did not move.
It simply watched.
The operative froze halfway to the cradle.
"Do it," the officer commanded.
The rod trembled in the operative's grip.
The figure's gaze shifted slightly.
The sigil along its throat pulsed once.
The metal rod cracked down its length.
Split cleanly in two.
No visible force.
No movement.
Just pressure.
The operative dropped the broken pieces and staggered back.
Silence thickened.
The officer's composure fractured visibly.
"You were not meant to awaken," he said.
The figure blinked once.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Seraphina stepped closer.
Kael felt the ridge respond beneath his boots, not in violence, but in alignment.
The pale figure inhaled again.
This time, the air around it shifted.
The remaining sigils flickered.
One by one.
Not breaking.
Loosening.
The other wagons trembled in answer.
"They are synchronized," Foret said under his breath.
The former Circle man's voice was thin. "They share structural tethering."
"If this one destabilizes," Kael said quietly, "the others follow."
The officer looked at him sharply.
"You do not understand what you risk."
"I understand what you hid," Kael replied.
The pale figure's gaze never left Seraphina.
Recognition.
Not of identity.
Of state.
Seraphina's pendant glowed faintly in response.
She did not reach out.
She did not speak.
The ridge trembled again.
The transport path behind the convoy cracked sharply, splitting across the narrow exit.
Stone collapsed in a controlled slide, blocking the only clear route out.
The convoy was trapped.
Containment had become confinement.
The officer realized it at the same moment Kael did.
"You have forced collapse," he said.
"No," Kael replied. "You built it unstable."
The pale figure shifted within the cradle.
Not violently.
Just enough.
The final sigil at its wrist dimmed to half-strength.
The air grew heavier.
The other two wagons creaked.
From within them, faint answering pulses flickered.
Awareness spreading.
The officer stepped back at last.
Not surrender.
Calculation breaking.
"This is beyond you," he said quietly.
The pale figure blinked again.
And smiled.
Not wide.
Not monstrous.
Just enough to be understood.
The ridge answered with one final tremor.
Not warning.
Not destruction.
Choice.