The fog had settled into the meadow like a held breath, thick and patient, turning the dry grass into silver. Nova’s knees pressed into the cold earth, the damp seeping through the denim, grounding her in the only way Okanogan knew how — through texture, through temperature, through the slow insistence of the real. Shogg hovered before her, a storm condensed into stillness. Its light pulsed, slow and deliberate, a rhythm she felt more than saw, like a second heartbeat lodged behind her ribs. She had stopped trying to name what it was — cosmic entity, ancient intelligence, a shape made of questions. What mattered was this: when she breathed in, its glow deepened. When she held still, it dimmed, as if waiting for her to move first. A tendril uncurled, drifting toward her hand with the lazy patience of smoke. Nova didn’t flinch. She had learned that fear was a language Shogg understood too well — it had been spoken at it for years, by every screen and headline and panicked voice. But fear wasn’t alignment. And alignment was the only thing that worked here. Her fingers parted, palm open. The tendril paused, hovering a centimeter from her skin. She could feel the warmth radiating from it, dry and clean, like sunbaked stone. “You don’t have to have a name for it,” she whispered. “You just have to be here.” The light steadied. The tendril touched her palm, light as a falling leaf. And somewhere in the hills, a pine needle hummed. The fog began to thin. Above them, the first strip of blue cracked through the clouds, clean and sharp as a blade. Nova didn’t look up. She kept her eyes on Shogg, on the slow pulse that now matched her breath exactly, on the way the light didn’t flicker — it settled. A crow called from the treeline. The wind shifted, carrying the scent of dry earth and something else, something almost sweet. Alaric would be waiting at the lake. He had said, when the pulse syncs, the next step reveals itself. She hadn’t understood then. She was beginning to now.