On the cliff's edge, a man stood still as carved stone. Salt wind whipped through dark, unkempt hair, tugging at the hem of a faded tunic that had once been fine linen, now rough and salt-stained from years of hard travel.

Leandros did not blink at the spray. His gaze was fixed on the horizon, where a veil of mist clung to a distant shape—an island, shadowed and indistinct, as if it were not entirely part of the world.

Behind him, the land was broken. Blackened fields, scattered stones that had once been walls, the skeletal remains of olive trees reaching for a sky that had forgotten them. A cart track, barely visible, wound toward the sea. On it, a figure moved—slow, weary, wrapped in a traveler's cloak, making their way along the shore road.

Leandros spoke without turning.