Chapter 57: Valen’s Execution?

The cairn trail ended at a cliff face that wasn’t a cliff face.

Eloy spotted the seam three paces before he would have walked into it. A vertical line where the rock grain didn’t match, the edges too clean for natural weathering. Pre-war construction, same precision as the way station floor. He pressed his palm against the stone. Cold. The vibration from the cairn still hummed in his shinbones, a frequency Caldera’s Edge matched from its sheath.

"Here." He didn’t raise his voice. Maya was already watching his hand. Isolde had stopped five paces back, scanning the treeline.

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