Later that night, Tavian climbed the ridge behind the old wellspring. He didn't tell anyone. He never did. He just left when the sky turned glassy and the fireflies lit up the bark.
No one noticed anyway.
Except, maybe, the thing watching him.
He didn't always know it was there. But tonight, the feeling pressed in harder. Like air that had memory. Like stone that had teeth.
The ridge was overgrown, but he knew where to place his steps. He passed between two whisper-vines curled in their sleep state, through the arch of a tree split by Veilflash decades ago, and crouched at the edge of the drop. Below him, Kaltrava pulsed faintly in green and gold.
He let himself breathe.
And then, he felt it.
Not behind him. Not beside him.
Below.
A pressure in the air, like the space between pulses of a dying beast.
He leaned forward.
Mist crawled along the lower slope, tugged by an unseen rhythm.
At its center stood a shape.
Too tall for a human. Too thin for a beast.
Wrapped in folds of silver thread that didn't catch moonlight the way cloth should.
It didn't move.
But it was looking at him.
Tavian's throat went dry.
He blinked.
And it was gone.
Just mist. Just stone.
He stumbled back from the ridge, breath shallow, heart skipping against his ribs.
Not fear. Not exactly.
Recognition.