A thin robe of mist floated over the vale, entwining through the shattered modes and jagged terrain like liquid murk. The faint hum of residual energy threaded through the crevices, wobbling noiselessly beneath Maya’s bases as she squinched near a tertiary knot. The tablet pressed to her casket palpitated sanguine, faint and steady, reverberating in subtle harmony with the pulsing earth beneath them. The structure’s intelligence, though dormant, dallied patiently, eternal, calculating. Every flicker of shadow, every ripple along the modes, every faint palpitation of light was a scrap of study — a communication from a knowledge