The land stopped pretending after the House blinked.
It stretched out flat and bare, no cuts to hide in, no rises worth the name. Just a long pull of road laid straight through dust and sun like someone had wanted witnesses. Cole rode it without hurry, feeling the difference settle into his bones.
The quiet was sharper now.
Not thicker.
Not heavier.
Sharper.
Like the world had taken off gloves.
Dusty ranged ahead again, but only a little. The dog tested distance in short bursts, then circled back like an orbit that hadn't decided how wide it was allowed to be. Every time he paused, he looked east.
Cole did too.
Hours passed. The sun climbed, then leaned. Heat pressed down until the air tasted thin. Cole rationed water by habit, not need. His body complained where it should. His head felt… wrong.
Not fogged.
Delayed.
Focus loss did that. You still saw things. You just saw them half a breath later than you should've. It was like living in the echo of yourself.
Cole adjusted his pace to match it.
By midafternoon, the ridge came into view.
Split Horizon.
It rose clean out of the flats like a blade driven into the earth, then broke itself in two. Not collapsed. Not eroded.
Split.
The left side glowed red under the sun, stone catching light and holding it like a wound that refused to clot. The right side stayed dark, shadowed no matter the angle, swallowing light instead of reflecting it.
Two halves.
Same ridge.
Different rules.
Cole slowed the mule.
Dusty stopped outright.
The dog's ears flattened, not back in fear but sideways, like he couldn't decide which direction mattered more.
Cole dismounted and stood with the reins loose in his hand.
The air here felt… balanced.
Not safe.
Balanced.
Like a scale waiting for weight.
He scanned the ridge face. No movement. No figures. No banners. Just stone and sky and the long quiet stretch of road that funneled straight between the two halves.
He didn't like funnels.
Cole walked forward on foot, boots crunching softly. The sound carried too far, echoing off the stone like it wanted company.
Halfway to the ridge, his head started to ache.
Not pain.
Pressure.
The kind that came when probability leaned close enough to smell you.
Text ghosted at the edge of his vision.
Not fully formed.
—OBSERVATION—
—ROYAL PROXIM—
It vanished before finishing.
Cole didn't blink.
The House was watching again.
Not intervening.
Watching.
Dusty paced in a tight circle, then stopped on the line where the ground's color shifted. One paw on pale dust. One paw on darker grit.
He whined once.
Cole stepped up beside him.
From here, the difference was unmistakable.
The red side of the ridge hummed faintly—not sound, not vibration. A sense of stored heat. Of movement held in place by force.
The dark side did the opposite. It drank sound. Cole could snap his fingers there and barely hear it. Even his breathing felt muted.
Two choices.
Neither honest.
Cole touched the Ace inside his coat.
Cold.
The Ten of Clubs vibrated faintly, like it recognized the place.
The Three of Diamonds stayed quiet.
That bothered him most.
He led the mule forward.
The road didn't choose for him.
It split clean down the middle and waited.
Cole took the line between.
The pressure behind his eyes eased slightly, like something had approved of the refusal.
As they passed between the ridge halves, the air changed.
Time felt stretched here. Not slowed—thinned. Like moments were being pulled long enough to inspect.
Cole felt eyes on him.
Not human.
Not animal.
Accounting eyes.
He kept walking.
Halfway through, Dusty stopped and barked.
Sharp. Furious. Just once.
Cole froze.
The echo died immediately, swallowed by the dark side of the ridge.
From the red side, something answered.
A sound like stone shifting under weight. Like something large adjusting its posture.
Cole's hand went to his revolver.
He didn't draw.
Drawing meant intention.
Intention meant invitation.
A shape moved along the red face.
Not fully visible. Just an outline sliding where shadow shouldn't slide. It moved parallel to them, matching pace, never crossing the boundary into the road.
Cole didn't look directly at it.
He watched it in reflection—caught in the mule's eye, in Dusty's tense posture, in the way the light bent wrong around the rock.
The dark side stayed empty.
That was worse.
Cole felt his pulse pick up, then forced it down. Panic was expensive. He couldn't afford interest anymore.
The shape on the red side stopped.
Cole stopped.
The mule shifted, uneasy.
Dusty growled low, teeth bared.
The shape leaned closer to the edge of the stone, just enough for Cole to see detail.
It wasn't one thing.
It was many, layered wrong. A man's silhouette stretched thin. A beast's shoulders too wide. Something else threaded through both like a bad thought you couldn't shake.
Royal-tier distortion.
Not the King.
Not the Queen.
Something wearing borrowed authority.
Cole felt the House hover.
Text snapped into place, crisp and immediate.
HOUSE OF RECKONING // PROXIMITY ALERT
ENTITY: UNDECLARED ROYAL ADJACENT
STATUS: OBSERVING
ADVICE: DO NOT ENGAGE
Cole almost smiled.
Advice always came late.
The shape tilted its head.
It didn't speak.
It didn't need to.
The red side of the ridge brightened, stone catching light until it hurt to look at. Heat rolled off it in visible waves.
The dark side responded by growing deeper, swallowing even that glare.
Cole stood in the middle and felt the cost of every choice he'd already made line up behind him like cards waiting to be dealt.
The shape extended something that might've been an arm.
The air tightened.
Not an attack.
An offer.
Cole didn't answer.
He stepped forward instead.
The shape recoiled—not far. Just enough to show it hadn't expected refusal.
Dusty surged ahead, barking now, snapping at the empty air where the road met the red stone. He couldn't cross. Something held him back like a leash tied to the ground.
Cole grabbed the dog's scruff and pulled him back.
"Enough," Cole said.
The word landed heavy.
The shape withdrew its limb and slid back along the ridge face.
The pressure eased.
Text flickered again, softer this time.
—INTEREST NOTED—
Then gone.
They moved on.
The moment they cleared the split, sound rushed back in like water released from a dam. Wind. Breath. The mule's hooves striking dirt like they mattered again.
Cole didn't stop until the ridge was behind them.
When he did, he turned and looked back.
The red side had dimmed.
The dark side stayed dark.
The road between them looked ordinary now. Just dust and stone.
Like nothing had happened.
Cole knew better.
They camped that night on open ground.
No fire.
No light.
Cole lay awake with his hat pulled low, watching the stars drift like they were being dealt by an invisible hand.
Sleep came late and shallow.
Dreams came wrong.
He dreamed of cards laid face-down across the sky. Of hands he couldn't see reaching for him. Of a woman's face he knew had once mattered and now refused to come into focus.
He woke with his jaw clenched and his breath short.
Dawn broke pale and cold.
Dusty sat up immediately, staring east.
Cole followed his gaze.
Far ahead, the land dipped, then rose again. Not a ridge this time. Something lower. Wider.
And above it—
A faint pulse.
Not light.
Attention.
Cole felt it settle into his chest like a marker.
He stood, rolled his shoulders, and ignored the protest from his ribs.
Another day.
Another stretch of road that hadn't decided whether it wanted him alive.
He mounted the mule.
They rode east.
Behind them, Split Horizon Ridge watched without eyes.
Ahead of them, the road stayed open.
And somewhere far beyond the dust and stone, a King counted, patient and precise, waiting to see how much farther Cole Marrow would walk before the cost came due.