American Prophet — Book Two — Chapter 11: Signals in the Snow
Teaser: Naomi and Thomas follow a chain of faint beacons north. In the snow, the earth sounds like a heart behind a wall.
The river froze into a road and then into a question. Which bank still held a path? Which branch still held a bridge under the snow? Naomi tapped the ground with her pole. The sound came back through her arm—solid, then hollow, then solid again.
Thomas checked the antenna. A clean note reached them, far to the north and a little west. He turned the dial until the tone sharpened. “Bridge relayed a beacon,” he said. “We’re lined up.”
They traveled by daylight, which in that part of the year meant a handful of bright hours and then a long blue. At camp Naomi wrote what the ground said like a doctor taking a pulse: steady, then fast, then steady again. When the wind slept, she could hear a deeper sound underneath—a slow velan, a ratio that did not change even when the snow did.
On the third day the beacon split into two notes and then rejoined itself. Thomas frowned. “Reflection,” he said. “Ice ridge or bedrock step.” He drew a map with his glove and marked a triangle with three dots at its top. Naomi felt heat under her palm even in that cold. “The same sign,” she said. “The same gate.”
They reached a low line of hills where the snow grew thin and the rock showed like old skin. The note in the radio found harmony with the hum underfoot. Naomi spoke to the ground as she had in the vault. “Korel tor,” she said softly. Key, open. The snow crust fell in a soft circle around her boots, as if the world had sighed. A dark seam appeared in the stone.
They had found the door by listening for its heartbeat.
American Prophet 