Crystal Shadows Pilgrimage

Footfalls stirred frost into sighing spirals as he pressed through an orchard of glass-spun trees, each trunk shimmering with refracted hymns of light. The air pulsed faintly, like a heart whispering a prayer backward, and the violet folds across his shoulders gathered the glow into soft, solemn ridges. Behind him, ruins peered through the shards—stone arcs bent like faithful knees, bowing before something never named. Strapped close to his ribs a slab bore chalked words: *WHERE VOJTA?* It looked less like a plea than a covenant etched under duress, as if finding Vojta might unlock more than a single soul’s fate. A lone bird veered low, trailing a vein of blue fire before vanishing between crystal limbs. Did it carry omen or absolution? Beneath the coronas of fractured daylight, the question throbbed unanswered. Vojta remained unseen, and in that absence the forest deepened its hush, drawing the pilgrim onward toward mysteries still unsolved.