The Still Vale remembered nothing of the morning.
By the time Aren stepped outside again, the square had returned to its usual shape—orderly, predictable, dull in the way only safe places could be. The cracked stone beneath the clock tower had been repaired with surprising speed. Fresh mortar traced a neat line across the ground, already drying to match the rest of the square.
Too neat.
Aren paused at the edge of it, staring down.
No one else seemed to notice.
A merchant shouted prices. A pair of children chased one another between stalls. The clock tower ticked forward with patient indifference. The moment had been folded away, tucked neatly into the past like an inconvenience no one wished to examine too closely.
Aren felt a faint, persistent pressure behind his eyes.
He walked on.
Throughout the day, small things kept happening—nothing dramatic, nothing obvious enough to draw attention, but enough to make his skin prickle.
A cup slipped from a counter and shattered, missing his foot by less than an inch. A door swung open just as he reached for it, as if anticipating his hand. Once, when he turned down the wrong street by habit, the road curved gently and returned him to familiar ground without effort.
Each time, the world corrected itself.
Each time, Aren pretended not to notice.
By evening, the pressure had become a weight.
He sat alone in his room, loaf half-eaten, staring at the wall opposite his bed. The plaster there was cracked in the shape of a thin, wandering line, like a fracture that had started somewhere unseen and grown tired halfway through its journey.
Aren found himself tracing it with his eyes again and again.
Don't think about it, he told himself.
The thought came anyway.
If it hadn't stopped…
His breath caught.
The image rose unbidden—the carriage smashing through the market road, bodies scattering, sound returning too late. His chest tightened, panic flaring sharp and sudden.
"No," he whispered, pressing his hands flat against his knees.
The pressure eased instantly.
Too instantly.
Aren froze.
The room felt different. Not changed, exactly, but attentive. Like a held breath waiting for release.
He stood slowly.
Nothing happened.
The walls did not shift. The crack in the plaster remained where it was. The floor did not soften beneath his feet.
And yet—
Aren swallowed.
He remembered the way the stone had folded that morning. Not broken. Folded. As though reality itself had bent to avoid something worse.
The thought sent a chill through him.
He reached for the most comforting explanation he could find.
Coincidence.
People survived accidents every day. Streets were repaired. Luck happened. It was foolish—dangerous—to assign meaning where none existed.
Still, the word tasted thin.
He left his room and stepped into the narrow street outside. Dusk painted the buildings in muted gold, shadows stretching long and soft across the ground. Somewhere nearby, someone laughed.
Life continued.
Aren walked until the sounds faded and the streets narrowed, winding toward the older part of the Vale where buildings leaned closer together and history felt heavier. He did not know why he was going there. His feet seemed to choose the path on their own.
At the end of the street stood a small shrine, half-forgotten and rarely visited. Its stone surface was worn smooth by time, the carved symbols along its base softened beyond recognition.
Aren stopped before it.
He had passed this shrine his entire life without once wondering who it was for.
Now, the question surfaced uncomfortably clear.
"Who built this?" he murmured.
The shrine did not answer.
A figure shifted in the shadow beside it.
Aren startled, heart jumping as a man stepped into the fading light. He was older, his hair streaked with grey, his posture straight in a way that suggested long habit rather than strength. His eyes were sharp, assessing, as if Aren had interrupted something rather than the other way around.
"You shouldn't linger here," the man said calmly.
Aren frowned. "Why?"
The man regarded him for a moment before answering. "Because people come here when they've noticed things they shouldn't."
The words sent a pulse of unease through Aren.
"I don't know what you mean," he said, too quickly.
The man smiled faintly—not unkindly, but not reassuring either. "Of course you don't."
He gestured toward the shrine. "Old places collect stories. Most of them are wrong."
"Then why keep them?" Aren asked.
"Because believing in rules makes people feel safe," the man replied. "Even when they don't know who made them."
Aren's breath slowed.
"Do you?" he asked quietly.
The man met his gaze. "No one does."
Silence settled between them.
After a moment, the man stepped back into the shadows, already losing definition as the light faded. "If you're wise," he added, "you'll learn where the limits are—and stay well within them."
"Limits of what?" Aren asked.
But the man was gone.
Aren stood alone before the shrine, the stone cool and indifferent beneath his fingers. He felt the pressure behind his eyes again, sharper now, edged with something dangerously close to recognition.
He turned away at last, walking back toward the heart of the Vale.
That night, sleep came easier than it should have.
Aren dreamed of lines etched into stone—circles within circles, layered so tightly they left no room to breathe. He stood at the centre of them, hands outstretched, while unseen walls rose quietly around him.
He woke with the image already slipping away.
Outside, the bells rang on time.
And somewhere, deep beneath the Still Vale, something old and patient settled more firmly into place, waiting for the next crack to widen.