What the Earth Remembers

No one moved at first.

The golden hush in the clearing seemed to hold them — not captive, but in reverence. As if the place itself needed a moment to breathe them all in.

Then Cero lowered his hand.

The circle of stones didn’t shimmer.
Didn’t light up.
Didn’t break.

But something beneath it — in the soil, in the memory of the land — shifted.

Orion rose slowly beside him.
“It’s not just memory anymore,” he said.
“It’s readiness.”

Kai took a careful step forward, eyes scanning the edges of the ring.

“So what happens now?”

Cero looked up, calm.
“It listens.”

Sienna, ever attuned to air and silence, tilted her head.
“Do we speak?”

Orion shook his head gently.
“Only if you have something true to say.”

Cairo stepped beside the group, crouching once again near the stones. He brushed aside a patch of moss — revealing something unexpected:

Not carved. Not drawn.

Grown.
A pattern in the roots.

Not glyphs. Not language.
Something more ancient.

It pulsed once — barely — beneath his fingers.

“I don’t think we’re here to command it,” he said softly.
“I think we’re here to be remembered back.”

The sky above flickered as the light changed — not darkening, but deepening.
Like a curtain lifting on something unseen.

Cero closed his eyes.

“There’s more coming.”

Kai glanced around.
“People?”

Cero shook his head.

“Signals. Truths. Ones we buried. Ones we left behind.”

And in that moment, the wind rose again — gentle, but exact.

As if even the air had been waiting for someone to return.