The air was thick with silence.It gathered low to the ground and higher among the boughs, a hush that seemed to soak into bark and leaf and skin alike. It wasn't the natural hush that followed dusk, nor the gentle quiet of a forest at peace, it was the kind of silence that pressed down on the skin, that made every heartbeat sound like a drumbeat in the skull. Even breath felt like an intrusion here, a pale mist that ought not be seen.
"You feel that?" Thomas's voice came low, a whisper that almost dared to break the stillness.The sound slipped out of him like a blade drawn an inch from its sheath, wary of echo. He hovered close, as if the air itself might swat him down for speaking too loud.
The Knight King replied, tone grave, "I'm impressed even you sensed it."He did not move much when he spoke, a still figure above Ludwig's shoulder, helm tilted, gilded faintly by light that wasn't truly there. Approval and warning threaded the same measured breath.
