The corridor did not open.
It softened.
Ira noticed it when she passed it the next morning.
The stone still sealed the passage completely, pale and smooth, but the air around it no longer felt empty. There was a faint warmth there now, subtle as breath against skin. The city did not hum evenly in this place. Its rhythm bent, as if something inside it leaned.
She stopped.
Devansh felt it immediately. He turned before she spoke.
"It changed," she said quietly.
He approached the wall and lifted his hand. He did not touch it.
He did not need to.
The space around the stone held a gentle pressure, like the memory of motion.
"The city is no longer closing it," he said. "It's… holding it."
"For what?" Rehaan asked from behind them.
Ira didn't answer at first.
She stepped closer.
The heaviness inside her chest responded in a way she had not felt before. It did not pull. It did not gather.
It recognized.
Her breath slowed.
"It knows me," she whispered.
The words sounded strange even to her.
She raised her hand and rested her fingers against the warm stone.
This time, there was no resistance.
No surge.
No weight.
Instead, a quiet unfolding moved through her awareness, like a thread loosening from a knot.
She saw nothing.
But she felt the faintest suggestion of direction.
Not outward.
Through.
She pulled her hand back slowly.
Her fingertips tingled.
Devansh watched her closely. Something about the way she stood there unsettled him more than any visible fracture.
"What did it do?" he asked.
"It didn't do anything," she replied. "It… listened."
Rehaan exhaled under his breath. "That's worse."
Ira glanced at him.
"When structures listen," he continued, "they start choosing."
They left the corridor in silence.
But long after they were gone, the stone remained warm.
And somewhere deep within Vayukshi, ancient systems adjusted around a new, unnamed reference point.