Chapter Four: Stone Still Breathes
The alley should have been empty.
That was the first thing Aerin noticed.
Market stalls had once crowded this stretch of street—bright awnings, shouting vendors, the smell of spice and oil. Now there was only rubble and dust, the bones of broken stone slumped against one another like tired bodies. No people. No noise.
Too quiet.
Aerin stepped carefully, boots crunching over gravel. Every sound felt too loud, like the world was listening back.
"You know," Kerris said from behind them, far too cheerfully, "most people avoid places where the ground tried to eat them yesterday."
Aerin didn't turn. "Most people didn't feel it screaming."
Kerris paused. "Right. Yes. That. Still very unsettling, by the way. Not sure why you're saying it so calmly."
"I'm not calm."
"Ah," Kerris said. "Then you're doing a terrifyingly good impression."
They reached the center of the alley, where the stone had buckled inward. The collapse hadn't spread outward like a normal cave-in. Instead, the ground had folded, as if something beneath it had exhaled and then decided to stay that way.
Aerin felt it again—that low, subtle pull in their chest.
Not pain.
Recognition.
Their fingers tingled.
"Don't," Kerris said immediately.
Aerin blinked. "Don't what?"
"Whatever face you're making right now. That's the face people make right before something explodes or curses them forever."
"I'm just going to touch it."
"Of course you are."
Aerin knelt and pressed their palm against the stone.
The world shifted.
Not violently. Not loudly.
The stone beneath their hand warmed, faintly, like skin left too long in the sun. The dust stirred—not lifted by wind, but by something deeper, something slow and deliberate.
Aerin gasped.
They felt it.
The weight of years. The pressure of centuries. The patience of something that had never learned to hurry.
A memory rose—not images, not sounds—but a sense of being held. Of bearing weight without complaint. Of standing while storms raged and cities grew