Twilight bled through the canopy like the world was exhaling its last golden breath. The branches overhead stretched impossibly wide, their surfaces etched with ancient runes that pulsed faintly, as if the trees remembered magic even in sleep. Light trickled down in slow, dappled beams, catching on suspended motes of glowing pollen. The air was syrup‑thick with age and mana—a brew of sap, rotting illusions, and the iron tang of old blood magic.
Draven stood still.
He let the hush cling to him. In the distance a leaf drifted loose, spiraling through a shaft of light before landing without a sound; even that small motion felt intrusive. His pupils narrowed, then widened, cataloguing the smallest shifts—how each breath stirred the pollen, how the rune‑bands across the branches brightened with the rise of his heartbeat and faded when he steadied.
