Nobody slept well.
The voice from beyond the gate had reached only those gathered at the crossroads the night before, and yet each of them carried it differently, as though it had passed through each person and taken the shape of whatever it found waiting there.
Father described it, quietly, as the voice of an old friend — someone whose absence he had never quite stopped noticing.
Grace remembered it as a teacher's voice, patient and exacting in a way that reminded her of lessons she'd long since stopped consciously carrying.
Kael, oddly, remembered it as someone calmly walking him through a difficult equation, breaking down something complicated into pieces he could finally hold.
Elira recalled something closer to maternal reassurance, the specific comfort of being told that whatever came next would be all right.
Sarya remembered nothing specific at all.
