Court of Four Seasons, Borrowed Moon

A circular chamber of pale stone opens beneath root-tangled arches, the air inside sweet with wet moss, apple blossom, and something sharper, like struck copper after rain. Four carved pedestals stand around a central moon-bowl, each ringed by fading paint of green, gold, red, and white. Thin threads of light move under the floor like trapped fireflies, and whenever the bells overhead sway, the room answers with a faint pulse of blue shimmer that makes the shadows bow and stretch as if listening.