"It doesn't hurt," she whispers against my shoulder. "It just feels like... like they left something behind. Something in the dirt."
I hold her tight, my mind racing. The Architects are dead. The dreadnought is dust. The Genesis Seed is secure. But Elara is the Blueprint. Her mind is still tuned to the cosmic frequencies, even without the magic to weave them. If the residual Architect slag in the Mariana Trench is emitting a frequency...
Elara, I project gently, wrapping my mental arms around her. I need you to draw the rest of it. Draw the source of the echo. Can you do that?
She nods against my shoulder. She picks up her charcoal pencil and turns to a fresh page. She doesn't draw the dreadnought this time. She draws a massive, brutalist spire, half-buried in the ocean floor. And at th
