Light.

Then darkness.

Then light again.

Not like before — not something she could see, but something that saw her.

Elaria woke inside it.

At first, there was no sense of body, no air, no sound. Only motion — slow, tidal, ancient. She was floating within something that breathed around her, vast and alive, as if she’d been swallowed by the lungs of the world itself. Every inhale reshaped her, every exhale whispered her name through a thousand unseen mouths.

Elaria.

Elaria.

Elaria.

She ...