Merlin went still.
Not the frozen-stiff kind of stillness, but the kind that came when something inside him simply… shut a door. A reflex older than his body, sharper than his instincts, deeper than his fear. The silhouette didn't move again, but the damage was done—one tilt of its head and the air around them had changed texture.
Morgana didn't breathe for several seconds. Her mana rose like a curtain around the two of them, thin enough not to provoke the distortion but dense enough to shield Merlin if it lunged.
"It recognized you," she murmured—voice calm, yet vibrating with the kind of focus that came from a master mage standing inches from the unknown. "This is no longer observation. This is acknowledgment."
Merlin didn't look away from the silhouette. "What does that mean?"
"It means," Morgana replied, "that whatever is forming around you no longer sees you as incidental."
