The earth still remembered him.

Grass bowed where he’d lain. The ruins of the Kinoko Kingdom—now more overgrown than abandoned—stood quiet around him, vines curling over shattered stone like the hands of ghosts.

George stirred.

His eyes opened slowly, reflecting the overcast sky. Breath shallow. A film of sleep and something older clung to him, like dust on a blade left too long in its sheath.

He stood, unsteady but unflinching, and turned his gaze toward the distant edge of the world. The wind shifted, and with it, something behind him moved. A footstep—barely audible. But not imagined.

His voice was hoarse when it finally came. “How long was I asleep?”