Day 12: Lyrkon’s Journal

I woke up to rain. Not the kind that drums on leaves or hurls water against stone—this was the kind that presses against your skin, cold and insistent. My stomach had been a hollow stone all night, and now it felt heavier still, like it was trying to swallow the sky. I sat by the edge of the stream where the water was still, dark and slow, and watched how the raindrops caught the light. Vex had been there yesterday, by the river, his voice low and urgent, saying something about the stones remembering things they shouldn’t. I don’t know what he meant. I don’t think I want to know. But when I close my eyes, I can still feel the weight of his words in my chest, like a stone I can’t push away. I don’t know why I keep going back to that place—where the stones are smooth but cold, where the water runs deep and quiet. Maybe I just need to hear what the stones say again. Maybe that’s all I’m trying to do.