## The Gradient The rain tasted metallic. Not a pleasant tang, more like licking rusted rebar after a storm. Elara spat it out, the droplets clinging to her chin like stubborn silver beads. Above, the bioluminescent canopy pulsed with a…
## Echo Bloom The wind tasted of salt and dust, a familiar sting on Elara’s skin. She adjusted the woven sun-shield over her eyes, squinting at the shimmer rising from the Sapphire Waste. Ten moons it had been since the…
## The Echo Bloom The dust tasted like crushed stone and something sharper, metallic. Twelve-year-old Elara wiped a grime ribbon across her cheek with the back of a calloused hand, squinting at the pulsing sandstone wall before her. It throbbed…
## The Seam Rain lashed against the corrugated steel roof of the observation post. A relentless drumming that swallowed everything else except the low thrum vibrating through the soles of Elias Thorne’s boots. He tightened his grip on the data…
## The Obsidian Bloom The air hung thick, a humid blanket clinging to Xoltan’s skin. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he stared at the glyph-etched stone, its surface slick under the flickering lamplight. Years he’d spent deciphering these intricate…
## The Pollen Memory The rust-colored dust tasted like regret. Old man Hemlock swore it held the flavor of every failed harvest, every lost face in Respite. I didn’t taste faces, just grit on my tongue and the metallic tang…
## Echo Bloom The air tasted of static and regret. Elder traced a finger across the hull of the *Dust Moth*, its metal cool even through his worn gloves. Outside, the nebula bled purple and bruised orange, a cosmic bruise…
## The Static Bloom The air tasted like burnt sugar and static. Not the crackle from a faulty receiver, but something deeper, coating the tongue like ash. Wren coughed, pulling the salvaged respirator tighter across her face. The filter did…
## The Stitch & Stone The scent of jasmine hung thick, almost cloying, in the humid Charleston air. Not the sweet perfume of gardens, but a sharper, bruised fragrance clinging to damp cotton. Eliza pressed a handkerchief – one of…
The grit tasted of regret. Ada spat, the fine red dust coating her tongue like a second skin. Eldan hadn’t just *fallen* to the storms; it had been *eaten*. One moment, carved sandstone buildings gleamed, the next, swallowed whole by…
The scent of beeswax and rosewater clung to Antoine like a second skin. Dust motes danced in the single shaft of sunlight slicing through the gloom of his workshop, illuminating a half-finished glove—ivory silk, almost translucent. He didn’t sell warmth,…