Jude felt his breath catch. The streets that had been nothing but ruin, the structures that had been crumbling under time's weight, all of it was **whole.** Alive. Lights burned in the windows of towering spires, the sky above them no longer empty but **filled** with shifting, golden constellations. The streets were no longer silent, they **hummed** with the sound of something moving, something unseen but present, something **waiting.**
Mira whispered, "What the hell?"
Eldara exhaled. "It's… intact."
Jude stepped through the gate, his heartbeat hammering against his ribs. The fire inside him **recognized** this place, even if his mind did not. He could feel it in the way the energy wrapped around him, in the way the very air seemed to **know his name.**
Because this wasn't just a hidden part of the city.
This was a **memory.**
A memory so strong, so deeply woven into the bones of the world, that it had refused to fade.
