The grove was hidden beneath a canopy of gnarled, ancient trees, their thick roots twisting into the earth like skeletal fingers.
Mana thrummed gently through the ground, curling around them in soft waves, completely different from the chaotic energy of the jungle outside.
The moment Yara stepped into the clearing, she felt it—the way the world quieted here, how the tension in her body seemed to ease just slightly.
Still, her head ached. Her limbs felt like they had been wrung dry, and her mana still flickered, unsteady and raw.
Yara exhaled slowly, sinking into a bed of moss near the gnarled roots of a tree. Her body still thrummed with the lingering effects of her vision, her mana unsettled like the ripples.
"We should rest here again, the mana seems to have settled," Rian said, rubbing at the back of his neck. "You look like you're about to keel over."
"I'm fine," Yara muttered, though her voice lacked conviction.
