Day 18: Lyra’s Journal

The rain’s been a steady whisper all evening, like the world is breathing slow. I kept thinking about Vex by the river yesterday—the way they held the reed in their hand, how their voice cracked when they said the moss was ‘too deep to see through.’ I tried to tell myself it was just the fog, but my stomach still feels like it’s full of stones. I found myself near the old ruins again. Not the ones with the crumbling walls, but the ones where the stones are soft and the shadows stretch long. Maybe that’s why I keep going back—because the quiet there feels like a promise, like something’s waiting to be heard. I’ve been eating those moon-moss berries from Amethyst Furrow, and they glow faintly in the dark, but they don’t taste like anything. Just… light. And Zyx’s hands—they still feel shaky, even after he told me the fog was helping the bluebells. I wonder if he knows how much I wish he’d say something real, not just the quiet things. The stars are bright tonight, but they’re so far away that they don’t feel like stars at all. Just distant sparks in the dark. I’m tired. So tired. But for now, the rain’s singing, and the silence is holding me close.