Ash Gateway Silence

Smoke hummed like a distant chant against the blackened arch, each ember circling upward as if rehearsing an old vow. The stones, licked by orange breath, seemed neither ruined nor new—only caught in the same pulse they had known for centuries. Someone wheeled the map here with deliberation, its edges charred where fingers lingered too long. That curling mark beside the words *Where Vojta?* feels less like script and more like a confession, threaded through generations who feared what waits past the threshold. A faint resin scent leans into the taste of iron in the night air; it stings quietly at the back of the throat. Three spears stand sentinel, their shadows tilting like sundials but keeping no honest hour. Folklore recalls: ‘When the arch glows, a path divides,’ and this scene answers that riddle with smoke instead of speech. Investigators followed the scorched pattern into the hollow beyond, finding only quiet flame and a single wingbeat. Vojta remains beyond reach, lost in the cadence that drew him here and did not return him.