The ruins no longer felt safe.
Kael paced slowly under the arching roots, his balance steadier now, his eyes distant. Elira sat beside the twins, wrapping them in tighter cloth despite the realm's unnatural warmth.
Neither spoke of the figure.
Not yet.
The encounter had left something behind. A tension. A thread pulled taut between worlds.
Kael finally stopped and looked toward the edge of the mist. "We won't be hidden much longer."
Elira nodded. "We've never been hidden."
He crouched beside her. "They'll come. Eventually. From above. From beyond. Maybe even from below."
Elira didn't flinch. "Then we prepare."
They moved in silence that morning. Kael cleared debris from a collapsed hall that could become shelter. Elira etched protective wards into the stones, her ice magic threading into the ancient runes like frost finding old cracks.
The twins watched.
They were too young to speak, too new to walk, but they watched with the intensity of those who understood more than they should.
At twilight, the mist shimmered again.
But nothing stepped forth.
Instead, a sound came, a hum. Deep. Resonant. From beneath.
Kael froze.
Elira turned slowly.
The earth had begun to sing.
Not a warning.
A summoning.
The Lower Realm was calling its children home.
And it was no longer calling softly.