External POV
No one felt it all at once.
That was the cruelty of it.
If the mountain had cracked, if the sky had split, if blood magic announced itself with spectacle, people would have named it. They would have pointed, panicked, prayed. They would have known something terrible had begun.
Instead, it arrived as an inconvenience.
A ward that didn't quite hold.
A healing circle that took longer than usual.
A patrol route that suddenly felt… wrong.
Small things. Dismissible things.
The first report came from a border hamlet three ridges east of Moonstone territory - far enough to be irrelevant, close enough to be noticed only by those who still read peripheral logs.
A child failed to shift.
Not failed in the dramatic sense. No screaming, no blood, no rupture of bone or skin. The moon rose. The ritual began. The family waited.
And nothing happened.
