The road changed before the landscape did.
At first it was subtle, almost easy to dismiss as fatigue from travel. The stone beneath their boots grew rougher, the joints between slabs less carefully fitted, and the small roadside ward markers became more frequent. Each was a narrow pillar etched with simple runes meant to guide mana flow away from the path, the kind of practical enchantment Kael had seen in books but rarely encountered near the academy.
Darian noticed first, slowing just enough to glance down at one of the markers. "Border work," he muttered. "Someone actually expects trouble out here."
Lyra leaned closer without stopping, reading the runes as they passed. "Older style. Efficient. Not elegant, but it's holding," she said, then paused as if reconsidering her own words. "Or it was holding."
Seraphine kept her attention on the ridgeline ahead, where the Edrin Range cut a jagged line against the pale sky. She had been quieter since they left the academy, speaking only when necessary, and when she did it was with the measured tone of someone weighing each word for consequences. Kael found himself listening more closely to her silences than to anyone else's conversation.
As the day stretched onward, the air grew drier, and a faint pressure settled over the hills. It wasn't the kind of oppressive heaviness that preceded a storm, but something thinner and stranger, like the atmosphere had been stretched and left slightly uneven. Kael felt it in the back of his throat when he swallowed, and in the slight prickling sensation along his forearms when the wind shifted direction.
The instructors called for a brief halt near a split in the road. A small signpost pointed toward a settlement ahead, its lettering worn but readable.
Edrin Hollow.
Marrow spoke quietly with the other staff members, then turned to the student teams. "We enter the settlement before dusk," he said. "No wandering. No unnecessary casting. If you see ward markers, do not touch them. If you think something is wrong, you tell an instructor. You do not test it."
His gaze lingered on the group for a moment longer than it did on others, as though he suspected at least one of them was capable of ignoring instructions simply to satisfy curiosity.
Lyra's expression suggested she felt personally attacked.
Darian simply nodded, practical as ever.
Kael said nothing, but the reminder settled into him. Out here, mistakes were not contained within reinforced halls. Out here, curiosity could become damage.
They moved again, the path narrowing as the hills began to close around them. The first houses appeared an hour later, low stone structures with sloped roofs, built to withstand wind and snow in equal measure. Smoke rose from chimneys in thin threads, and the scent of burning wood mixed with dry earth.
Edrin Hollow felt smaller than Kael expected, a settlement tucked between two ridges like it had been placed there deliberately for shelter. A shallow stream ran along its edge, and a ring of ward stones stood at irregular intervals around the outer boundary. They were not uniform the way academy arrays were. Some leaned slightly. Some were newer than others. A few had cracks repaired with metal braces hammered into stone.
They were functional.
They were also tired.
Students from other teams slowed as they entered, eyes moving over the settlement with a mix of curiosity and unease. The villagers watched them in return, cautious but not hostile. A few children lingered at the edge of the road until an older woman ushered them back with a sharp glance.
Kael caught fragments of conversation as they passed.
"They sent the academy…"
"Maybe it's finally serious."
"The west wards have been flickering again."
"They say the beasts are coming down from the ridge."
Marrow and another instructor spoke with a man waiting near the center of the settlement, someone who looked like a local official. His clothing was simple but maintained, and his hands carried the marks of labor rather than ceremony. The man's expression was polite, but the lines around his eyes suggested he was operating on too little sleep.
When Marrow finished speaking, he turned back to the teams.
"We will divide responsibilities," he said. "Some will assist in checking ward integrity. Others will help reinforce the perimeter using temporary stabilizers. You will not move alone. You will not improvise. The goal is to prevent further degradation while the senior staff identify the source of the fluctuations."
His instructions were clear, but Kael could not stop himself from looking at the ward stones.
They looked ordinary enough, old rock marked with runes that should have been familiar. Yet the moment his attention settled on them, he felt the faintest pull behind his eyes, like a sense trying to wake.
He didn't activate Law Observation fully. He didn't need to.
Even without it, something in the air around the ward ring felt strained.
As if the magic was being asked to hold more than it was built to hold.
Darian leaned toward him as they waited for assignments. "Does this place feel… off to you, or is that just me getting paranoid."
"It's not just you," Kael replied, keeping his voice low.
Lyra, who had been listening, frowned. "Mana density is higher than baseline," she said. "It's subtle, but it's there. Like the air is saturated."
Seraphine's gaze moved toward the ridge above the settlement, where scattered trees clung to stone. "If mana rises suddenly in a region, something is feeding it," she said. "Or something is leaking."
Their team was assigned to assist with perimeter inspection under the supervision of one of the staff instructors, a woman Kael hadn't met before whose posture suggested she had spent years walking dangerous ground. She introduced herself only as Instructor Kaldor's deputy and seemed uninterested in names beyond what was necessary.
They moved along the settlement edge, passing between ward stones while villagers watched from a distance. The ward ring was not a perfect circle, but it was consistent enough to suggest it had been expanded over time as the settlement grew. Kael could see where newer stones had been placed, their runes sharper, their enchantments steadier.
He could also see where older stones had begun to fail, though he tried not to stare too long.
One ward stone near the western slope was darker than the others, its surface stained as if exposed to smoke. The runes were still visible, but they looked… thin. Not carved less deeply, but weakened, as though the magic within them had been scraped away.
Lyra slowed near it, instinct pulling her toward the runes the way a moth drifted toward light.
The supervising instructor's voice cut in immediately. "Do not touch it."
Lyra halted, hands tightening around her notebooks. "I wasn't going to."
The instructor's gaze remained steady. "People always say that."
Kael stopped as well, looking at the stone without moving closer. Darian shifted uneasily, as if the ward made his skin itch.
Kael let a fraction of Law Observation rise, just enough for clarity, and the ward stone's condition unfolded in his perception.
The structure was frayed.
Mana lines that should have been clean and continuous were broken into uneven segments, as if something had chewed through the lattice and left it patched with weak repairs. The flow around the stone was not simply leaking; it was being pulled, siphoned in thin threads toward the ridge above.
Kael released the skill quickly before the ache sharpened, but the impression remained.
He could still see the direction of the pull in his mind.
Darian glanced at him. "You're looking at it like you know something."
Kael kept his expression neutral. "It's worse than the others."
Lyra's eyes narrowed slightly, not satisfied, but cautious enough not to argue in front of staff. Seraphine watched Kael for a moment, then shifted her attention back to the ridge, as if noting the same direction he had instinctively avoided mentioning.
The supervising instructor marked the ward stone on her clipboard and moved them along, her pace brisk. As they continued around the perimeter, Kael kept noticing similar weaknesses, though none as severe as the one near the western slope. The pattern was consistent enough to be unsettling.
The settlement was being drained in specific places, not failing randomly.
By the time they returned to the center of town, the sun had lowered behind the hills, casting long shadows across the stone road. Villagers lit lamps outside their homes, warm light spilling into the growing dusk.
Student teams gathered near the temporary command point where instructors discussed their findings. Marrow listened to reports without visible reaction, but Kael noticed the way his attention sharpened when certain details were mentioned.
Multiple ward stones weakened along the western perimeter.
Mana density higher near the ridge.
Beast traces found on the upper path.
Kael stood with his team slightly apart from the others, the day's impressions settling into him. The academy had taught him that magic could be measured, controlled, corrected.
Edrin Hollow did not feel controlled.
It felt like something was slowly pulling at the seams, testing how much strain the settlement could endure before it tore.
Darian spoke quietly beside him, voice lower than usual. "I don't like how calm everyone is acting."
"They're not calm," Seraphine replied. "They're careful."
Lyra hugged her notebooks closer, gaze fixed on the ridge as dusk darkened its outline. "If the flow is being siphoned," she murmured, "then something up there is feeding."
Kael listened without responding, but his thoughts returned to the frayed ward lattice and the thin threads leading upward. He didn't know what waited beyond the settlement, and he didn't want to assume it would be simple.
For now, they were still students, still under supervision, still working within rules that existed for a reason. That reality steadied him more than any confident prediction could have.
As lamps flickered to life across Edrin Hollow, Kael adjusted the strap of his pack and followed the others toward the temporary quarters they'd been assigned, letting their quiet conversation fill the space between uncertainty and the work that would come tomorrow.