Imceaglaer -

But it sighed.

And down below, in the drowned schoolhouse, the imceaglaer shifted. imceaglaer

Kellan rowed out with a lantern. He found the schoolhouse door open, swaying underwater. And as he drifted inside, something strange happened. But it sighed

But the silence hummed . It felt like a held breath. Like the place itself was waiting to be remembered. He found the schoolhouse door open, swaying underwater

The villagers thought she was addled. But they humored her because she still wove the best fishing nets in the county.

One autumn evening, a storm scraped the coast raw. The tide pulled back farther than anyone had ever seen, and there—gleaming in the mud—were the rooftops of Old Dunbrig. The well. The kirk’s bell, crusted in barnacles. And the children’s schoolhouse, where Mareg had once taught dancing on Fridays.

She explained it once when he was small: im (inside), ceag (to crack open), laer (song). A crack inside a song. The echo left behind after the music stops.