Caelum Brynmoor wasn't born to chainmail and swords. A scribe's son from Low Hollow, he learned to read ruins before roads. In the Ruined Archive of Karst-Lir, kneeling at a moss-eaten stone table where the roof had given way centuries ago, he found what the armored knights missed — a map that breathed. It glowed faint when his palm brushed the dust from it, ink shifting like rivers. He took it quietly, with careful hands. The Whispering Thicket knew him by that quiet. Crouched low at dusk, listening, he held still as faerie lights woke behind him. The forest didn't warn him away. It recognized a borrower, not a taker. The Chasm Crossing was where borrowers are tested. Mid-step on the old rope bridge over the Gray Maw, wind tearing at his shaggy blond hair, Caelum didn't look down — he counted the sway and moved with it. On the other side, in the circle of standing stones, the Druid awaited, old as root and draped in bark and bone. He didn't want gold, only a promise that the map would not be owned, only carried through. Caelum swore it. Now he stands before a huge, humming stone portal in the deep cavern, blue-white light washing over him. He doesn't knock.