I reach for a branch above my head. It bends toward my fingers before I touch it. When I jerk my hand away, the branch trembles.
“Stop it,” I whisper.
The air grows thick, charged—like the static before lightning. It presses against my skin, sliding over it like oil on water.
My wolf stirs, bristling with unease. She knows what I know: We’re being read. Our energy signature, our magic, our very presence is being sampled and replicated.
And the texture of that magic ... I know it. I’ve felt it before.
This is Faelan’s fingerprint on reality itself.
I back away from the treeline, knife still drawn. My boots sink slightly into mud that wasn’t there a second ago.
This place isn’t just watching me.
It’s claiming me.
I turn sharply—there, through the warping treeline. A flicker of movement.
Dane.
He’s running. Calling. But his voice doesn’t reach me. His form bends with the landscape—too tall, too narrow, shifting like heat haze.
I try to scream his name.
Nothing comes out.
The air clots in my throat like I’m breathing mud. I try again—push harder. My wolf surges forward, muscles straining against skin.
No sound. No shift.
The trees close ranks behind me, not crushing inward but realigning—forming a path I hadn’t chosen yet. But one I was about to.
Five steps ahead, branches part. Ten steps beyond that, stones flatten into a natural walkway. The forest is carving itself open before I decide where to go.
I reach for my knife again—but it’s gone. The leather sheath hangs empty against my thigh, the weight vanished like it never existed.
“Second-guessing already?” The voice slides smoothly across my skin. Not from a specific direction. From everywhere. Nowhere. “You always second-guess your first instinct. Even now.”
I whip around, scanning for the source. Nothing but trees that lean just slightly too close, shadows that pool too dark beneath them.
“Stop,” I try to say again. The word forms in my mind but dissolves before it reaches my tongue.
“Your body knows what it is,” the voice continues. “It remembers what you were built for.”
My skin flushes cold. That voice—cultured, almost gentle—I’ve heard it before.
Phil. But not Phil.
I press my palm against my chest, trying to ground myself. The technique my mentors taught me long ago: find center, draw inward, pull from the core. Simple protection magic.
Except my energy doesn’t gather. It spills outward, and the ground sighs in response—darkening where my magic touches it, absorbing the pattern I tried to create.
“Don’t fight it,” the voice murmurs. “It’s not rejection you’re feeling. It’s recognition.”
I take a step back. The earth molds against my heel, conforming to my exact pressure and weight. When I shift my balance, the ground shifts with me—cushioning, supporting.
I try a locator spell next—the simplest form. Just a spark of intent, a push of will to find north, find exit, findanythingstable.
