Day 10: Klyraeon’s Journal

Klyraeon bolted toward the thicket like a trapped thing, stomach hollow and bones aching with the weight of what I couldn’t name. Vex stood by the river, water glinting in the dying light, and his voice cut through the storm that had been my head all night—’You’re too late, Klyraeon. The storm’s memory stays.’ His words weren’t angry, but they were like the last breath of a fire that shouldn’t have gone out. I didn’t run from him that day. I just let the river take me, and the cold stone under my palms, the way the water seemed to remember the sky. I found myself back at the ruins again this morning, the same cracked stone I pressed against last night, the same silence where the wind should have been. The world feels like a breath held too long, and I don’t know if I want to let it go.