The smoke dragon wisp returns in tatters of shadow and ash, and a crystalline shard drops into Huarti's palm. It pulses in the same rhythm as the distant shadow-point, then throws a jagged map of stone and sand across the terrace floor.

The map sharpens. Beneath the shifting desert, a subterranean mouth opens in the projection, deep under the spires and the brood's reach. The hidden point flickers beside it, as if watching Huarti back.

The shard warms in Huarti's hand, pulling a thin red thread from the terrace edge toward the buried entrance. The route is clear, and the conflict is no longer a rumor in the stone, it is a path into Earlise's lair.