The porch boards creak under Nova's weight as she settles cross-legged, facing east. The mountain is a dark silhouette against the slow bleed of morning. She doesn't look at it. She doesn't need to. Her right hand rests open on her knee, and her left index finger begins its familiar path — pressing into the soft flesh of her palm, tracing the ridge that rises like a spine, then the small hollow below her thumb that feels, every time, like a valley. She draws the outline of the peak. The long slope. The break where the trail bends. She's been doing this since she was seven. She doesn't remember why she started. Some mornings she tries to stop. Tries to catch herself and break the circuit. But her hand moves before her mind can intervene, and the ritual completes itself like a tide. Today, something is different. Her finger pauses at the center of her palm. The skin there is warm — warmer than it should be. She presses harder, and a faint thrum vibrates up her arm, deep and resonant, like a plucked string inside a cathedral. She pulls her hand back. Stares at her palm. Nothing visible. But the warmth lingers. From inside the cabin, she hears the soft chime of Alaric's kettle — the one he always sets on the stove before she wakes. She should go in. But she stays, her hand still open, the mountain still drawn on her skin, waiting to see if it answers. The fog is beginning to lift. Something is listening. She can feel it, just beyond the ridge line, patient and vast, learning the shape of her silence.