Glass Plain Echoes

Beneath a sky of lantern-moths the Glass Plain cracks like mirror-glass, exhaling the metallic tang of iron and citrus while the air hums with the rustle of wind-spun paper. Along a distant line of bleached pilings lanterns tick in clockwork heartbeats and someone has carved into the pale drift the question Where Vojta? so deep the letters gleam with algae. A spool of cerulean thread trails toward a bent compass stuck at three, a child's glove half-buried in rosemary-scented sand, and a coin-pinned map that trembles when the lanterns sigh, each hint pulling the search toward a ridge of singing glass. Bells from the searching camp toll into the cold and footsteps scatter like fallen keys across the plain; still Vojta remains absent, and the silence tastes of frost, copper, and unkept promises.