The sun had already melted into the horizon, spilling crimson across the land like a wound.
Their march continued.
The silence wasn't born of exhaustion anymore—but of habit.No one spoke, but everyone listened.Footsteps blended together—five hearts, moving to the same unspoken rhythm.
The ground here was drier, the stones sharper, the wind quieter.The sky was still gray,but that gray no longer felt like a threat—more like the natural tone of existence.
A hill rose ahead of them—one of the rare elevations in the endless field of ruins.
Arven, lagging slightly behind, was the first to notice.
"There's something up there," he said, voice hoarse with curiosity.
Fade stopped.
Zeyna approached, clutching her shoulder. She narrowed her eyes.
Kaela's device still wasn't fully functional—but it was scanning something.
It took only seconds to reach the top.
And then… they all saw it.
A tilted pole. Rusted.Its base buried in dirt, top snapped clean off.
But still there.
