Draven did not move immediately after the word formed in his mind, but something in him remained suspended, caught between recognition and refusal, as though his instincts had reached for an answer his logic was not yet willing to accept. Impossible. The word echoed again, but now it felt less like denial and more like hesitation like the mind refusing to step fully into something it could not yet define. And yet, despite that resistance, his eyes did not leave her.
Liora had already turned slightly away from him, her attention redirected as though the moment between them had ended the instant it began, but Draven found that his awareness did not follow that conclusion. Instead, it lingered stuck in the space she had just occupied, in the silence she had just left behind, in the feeling that refused to settle back into normalcy.
She was walking again.
Controlled. Composed. Unbothered.
As if nothing had happened.
As if nothing had shifted.
