The shelter passage opens into an older eastern channel. Warm air carries ash, wet stone, and a faint trace of lamp smoke through the narrow dark.
Hadrik’s angular marks continue above the buried watercourse, but one refusal mark ahead has been freshly disturbed from the far side, its edges crumbled inward.
Seren Vale
That mark was intact when Hadrik passed. Someone reached it from beyond the channel, then withdrew without leaving a full trail.
Seren raises her lantern without touching the wall. The light reveals damp grit pressed into the disturbed symbol and a thin smear of gray ash leading east.
Mara
The passage is warmer ahead, and the lamp smoke is recent.
Seren Vale
Tarin is still guarding the lower ravine, so no one followed us from there. Whatever moved beyond this mark came through the older channel.
Seren Vale
We can examine the disturbance, follow the ash, or wait and listen. I will not cross the refusal mark until we know what changed it.