The water was too still.
Kael noticed it before he noticed anything else.
The surface of the river reflected the sky without distortion—no ripples, no drift, no sign of the slow current that should have been there. It was as if the world had paused at this exact stretch of land and forgotten how to move forward.
He stood on the bank with his hands loose at his sides, breathing slow, listening.
Nothing.
No insects. No wind in the reeds. Even the distant forest felt muted, like sound itself refused to cross an invisible line.
Kael stepped closer.
The air changed immediately. Not colder. Not heavier. Just… wrong. The kind of wrong you couldn't explain, only feel in your bones. His skin prickled, and his breathing adjusted on instinct, shallow and controlled.
This place didn't belong.
He crouched and touched the water with two fingers.
It didn't ripple.
Kael pulled his hand back.
That settled it.
He straightened and scanned the surroundings. The river bent sharply here, carving a narrow corridor between stone and overgrown trees. A natural choke point. If something had gone wrong—if something had entered—this was where it would linger.
Kael exhaled slowly.
Power was never subtle when it arrived. But the aftermath often was.
He moved along the riverbank with measured steps, careful not to disturb the ground. His senses stretched outward, not searching for strength or presence, but for imbalance. Pressure where there shouldn't be any. Silence where sound should exist.
That was when he felt it.
A pull.
Faint. Distant. Like something tugging at the edge of his awareness, not calling to him, but reacting to him.
Kael stopped.
Across the river, half-submerged in shadow, something metallic caught the light. Just for a moment.
He narrowed his eyes.
A blade.
Not lying in the water—resting on it.
The sword was long and pale, its surface clean despite the damp air. It hovered just above the river's surface, its reflection perfectly aligned beneath it, as if the water itself acknowledged its presence.
Kael didn't move.
Weapons didn't behave like that. Not naturally.
He had learned long ago that the world tolerated violence. It even rewarded it. But objects that ignored its rules entirely were something else.
An anomaly.
The silence deepened.
Kael felt it then—a pressure pressing inward, not against his body, but against his awareness. Testing. Measuring. The same way he measured the world.
He adjusted his stance slightly.
If this was a trap, it wasn't meant to kill him.
It was meant to observe.
Kael's hand drifted toward his side, stopping just short of where a hilt should have been. He didn't draw anything. He didn't need to. Not yet.
The sword across the river shifted.
Barely.
The water beneath it trembled for the first time, ripples spreading outward in perfect concentric circles.
Kael's gaze hardened.
"So," he murmured quietly, more to himself than anything else, "you noticed me too."
The pressure vanished.
The silence broke all at once. Wind rushed through the trees. Insects resumed their song. The river surged forward as if released from restraint.
And the sword was gone.
Only the disturbed water remained, its surface slowly returning to normal.
Kael stood there for a long moment, committing the feeling to memory.
Something had changed.
Whatever governed this world—whatever kept power measured and predictable—had failed to account for something.
And for the first time in a long while, Kael wasn't sure whether that something was the sword…
…or himself.