Sahr walks for several hours before realizing what is bothering him.
Not a mistake.
Not a trap.
Not a hostile presence.
Something more subtle.
The world responds too well.
The forest is open. Not welcoming, open. The roots don't try to hinder their passage. The branches don't close behind them. Even the formerly unstable areas, where magic usually bent like a nervous membrane, remain silent.
It's... cooperative.
Sahr slows down half a step, just enough to observe without attracting attention.
Kael still leads the way. The wolf is focused, tense,
in that state of instinctive alertness that needs no rational explanation.
He notices nothing unusual, because nothing is unusual within the parameters he monitors: no direct threat, no fresh tracks, no sudden breaks.
Dravik brings up the rear, massive, restrained, too restrained.
The fire is there, Sahr can feel it, but it is compressed to an almost dangerous point.
A fire held so tightly always ends up seeking an outlet.
And in the middle...
Lunaya.
She walks without haste. Her pace is steady, measured.
She seems neither tired nor worried.
Her attention is not turned outward, but she is not absent either.
She is present in a different way.
Like someone who is no longer waiting for permission to move forward.
Sahr looks away.
That's when he understands.
It is not Lunaya he senses.
It is what moves around her.
A tiny variation in the way space accepts their presence.
A silent adjustment.
As if the world had taken a mental note and was recalculating its balance in real time.
Sahr inhales slowly.
Chaos never smells like violence.
It smells like efficiency.
He remembers an old rule, recorded in archives that he himself helped to falsify:
"When the world begins to simplify its responses, it is preparing to intervene."
And the world is simplifying.
They cross an ancient threshold without resistance.
A place where, in the past, protections would have required a countermeasure, a slowdown, a detour. Nothing happens. Not even a hesitation.
Kael stops, frowning slightly.
"Too easy," he murmurs.
Sahr doesn't answer right away.
Because it's not "easy."
It's fluid.
And fluidity, in an ancient system, is always a sign of a decision in progress.
They set off again. Sahr lets his mind slip away from the immediate present, just enough to observe the upper layers of reality. Not a vision. Not manipulation. A reading.
And then he feels distinctly what he had refused to admit since the clearing.
The Resonance no longer merely exists.
It is being interpreted.
The world no longer reacts to Lunaya.
It reacts to the idea of Lunaya.
Sahr clenches his jaw.
This is exactly what they had tried to prevent.
They had spent years keeping Lunaya in a particular state:
singular enough to be monitored, not defined enough to be classified.
A vague anomaly. An unstable variable, and therefore unexploited.
But she spoke again.
She answered yet another call that should never have been recognized.
And now the world was adjusting its parameters.
They weren't under attack.
They weren't blocked.
They weren't even threatened.
They were integrated into a scenario.
Sahr slowed down again, then stopped completely.
"Kael."
The wolf turned immediately.
"What?"
Sahr searches for words. This rarely happens to him.
"Don't you feel... like they're making it easier for us to pass?"
Kael narrows his eyes, looking around them.
"Yes.
A pause.
And I don't like it."
Dravik intervenes, gravely:
"This isn't a hunt."
Sahr nods slowly.
"No."
He looks at Lunaya.
She has stopped too. She isn't staring at them.
She is observing the space in front of them,
as if something invisible had just landed there,
without any specific shape.
"It's a reading," whispers Sahr.
Lunaya turns her head slightly toward him.
"A reading of what?"
He hesitates for a split second. Then decides not to lie.
"Of you."
The silence that follows is not tense.
It is dense.
"What are they looking for?" Kael asks.
Sahr answers bluntly:
"To see if you're stable."
Lunaya doesn't flinch.
"And if I'm not?"
Sahr holds her gaze.
"Then you cease to be a hypothesis."
Dravik growls softly.
"And what will they do?"
Sahr takes a breath.
"They will choose a method."
The word hangs in the air.
Method.
Not war.
Not elimination.
Not alliance.
Method.
Lunaya closes her eyes for a moment.
When she opens them again, something has changed.
Not in her Resonance. In her acceptance.
"Then let them watch," she says calmly.
Sahr senses, at that precise moment, a micro-reaction from the world.
A partial validation.
And that's when the smell becomes undeniable.
Chaos.
Not destructive chaos.
Organizational chaos.
The kind that precedes classifications, tests, and stances.
The kind that announces that nothing can ever return to the way it was before.
Sahr looks away.
He understands, with almost painful clarity, that what he senses is not an immediate threat.
It's worse.
It is the beginning of a protocol.
And for the first time in a very long time,
Sahr is not the one writing the rules.
He walks.
He observes.
And he now knows exactly what the world is feeling.
Not Lunaya.
But what she makes possible.