The Molten Maw had been reclaimed.
--
"We got the money," Althea said, her voice sharp as she looked down at her wrist communicator. The screen glowed faintly in the low light of the cave.
Nioh barely turned. "Good," he said after a moment, distracted by the hum in his thoughts. He was still watching the feed from the fossil's containment logs, even though the work was already done. The Heartwing had been activated. Stabilized. Tethered.
It wasn't really resurrection. Not in the classical sense. The dragon hadn't died. It had slipped into some kind of deep coma, buried in geologic time, listening only to a specific harmonic frequency that no one knew existed until now. Canonization was the word the council used. Nioh had his own thoughts. He preferred the idea of resonance memory. That time, like a shell, could carry a frequency long after the event had passed.
And somehow, Ekoh had known. His biocore had matched that frequency without Nioh even prompting it.
