The forest thinned like a wound healing in reverse—each tree farther apart than the last, the canopy slowly dissolving until sky seeped in like a god watching from above. There was nothing unnatural about the transition, but Caliste could feel the change nonetheless. The wild magic that clung to root and moss had been pushed back. Ordered. Tamed. Something in the soil had been reshaped—not by time, but by design.
He crouched at the edge of a ridge, the land rolling away beneath him in careful, unnatural symmetry. The trees had been trimmed to uniform height, forming clean lanes where once there would've been chaos. Brush had been cleared down to the roots. Even the birdsong here sounded rehearsed—too evenly spaced, as if nature itself had learned to march.
Caliste watched it all in silence.
A breeze stirred the edge of his cloak. He didn't move.
