Out of Sync
I woke before the light changed.
Not because of a sound.
Because something released me.
My eyes opened into darkness that wasn't quite dark—gray stone walls faintly visible, the shuttered window admitting a thin, colorless line of dawn. The inn was still asleep. No footsteps in the hall. No voices below. Even the building itself felt like it was holding its breath.
That alone was wrong.
I lay still, counting breaths I didn't need to count, waiting for the follow-up. The pressure. The pause. The sense that I had been noticed and found wanting.
Nothing came.
It felt like waking up after a hand had been resting on my shoulder all night—only to realize it was gone, and you didn't remember when it left.
My heart was already moving too fast.
Beside me, Imoen slept on her back, one arm flung overhead. A soft, uneven sound escaped her with each exhale—not loud enough to wake herself, just enough to prove she was deeply, comfortably gone.
I turned my head slightly, watching the rise and fall of her chest.
Unbothered.
She looked like someone the world had not asked anything of yet this morning.
I envied her.
Whatever had let go of me hadn't touched her at all.
I stayed where I was, staring at the ceiling, listening to that small, steady sound, waiting to see if the world would notice I was awake.
It didn't.
The world didn't react at all.
I sat up slowly.
Not to avoid waking Imoen—her breathing never changed—but because I wanted the moment to happen in pieces. Movement first. Weight shifting. The bed creaking beneath me in a way that had nothing to do with intention.
My feet found the floor.
Cold stone. Real. Evenly cold, not numbed or delayed or buffered by anything invisible. I pressed my toes down harder, testing for resistance that didn't belong there.
Nothing pushed back.
I stood, waiting for the hitch—the subtle wrongness, the sensation of stepping somewhere the world hadn't finished agreeing on yet.
It didn't come.
I crossed to the washstand and rested my fingers on the rim. Smooth ceramic. Worn thin by hands that had never known screens or shortcuts. My palm met it without hesitation.
Still nothing.
"…Okay," I murmured.
I hesitated, glanced back at the bed to make sure Imoen was still asleep.
She was.
I sighed, raised my hand—
—and gave my cheek a quick, foolish smack.
Not hard. Not dramatic. Just enough to sting and immediately make me regret it.
The sound cracked far louder than it should have in the quiet room.
I froze, breath held, waiting for something—anything—to unravel.
Nothing did.
My cheek burned. My eyes watered slightly. The room remained stubbornly intact.
"…Ow," I whispered, because apparently I needed confirmation.
I stood there for a moment longer, hand hovering uselessly near my face, feeling deeply judged by my own choices.
Then I exhaled.
"Right," I muttered. "Still here."
I moved to the shutter next. Wood scraped softly as I eased it open a finger's width. Dawn slipped in without ceremony, pale and indifferent. The courtyard below lay empty, stone clean and deliberate. No smears. No unfinished edges. No places refusing to exist.
I leaned closer, scanning where wall met sky.
Complete.
I closed the shutter and rested my forehead briefly against the wood.
This should have helped.
It didn't.
The absence of wrongness felt intentional. Like the world had noticed my attention and decided to behave.
I flexed my hands once. Then clenched them, just to prove I could.
No delay.
No catch.
No resistance.
Everything responded exactly when it was supposed to.
That was the problem.
Behind me, Imoen's soft, uneven breathing continued, steady and unbothered. Whatever rules were still watching me hadn't bothered her at all.
I stepped away from the window.
If the world was pretending nothing was wrong, I would have to decide whether to let it.
"Hey."
The word was soft. Unalarmed.
I turned as Imoen shifted, blinking sleep from her eyes. She pushed herself up on one elbow, hair a quiet mess, and looked at me like she was orienting herself to a familiar room rather than a new day.
"You're up early," she said.
"Did I wake you?"
She shook her head. "No. You were just… standing there."
I glanced down, realizing I was still near the window, one hand resting against the shutter like I'd forgotten to move it. I stepped away, suddenly aware of how deliberate my stillness must have looked.
"Sorry," I said. "Couldn't sleep."
She hummed, unconcerned, and stretched, the motion unguarded and easy. "That makes sense."
"It does?"
"Of course," she said. "After everything? I'd be more worried if you slept straight through the night."
I hesitated. "Why?"
She frowned at me—not sharply, just enough to suggest the answer was obvious. "Because Gorion's dead," she said. "And it's still… fresh."
There it was.
She said it carefully, but not gently. Like a fact you didn't want to trip over, so you named it and moved on.
I nodded once, because that was what was expected.
She studied me, eyes sharper now, awake in earnest.
"You don't have to keep it together around me," she said.
"I know," I replied.
"That's not what I meant," she said lightly, without accusation. "You've always done this thing where you go quiet and look like you're thinking three steps ahead."
I almost laughed.
"You used to do it when you made up your mind about something before you had all the information," she continued. "You'd stop arguing, get very polite, and then disappear into your own head for hours."
"That… sounds unhealthy," I said.
She smiled faintly. "It was. But it worked. For you."
"It did?" I asked before I could stop myself.
She paused, just a fraction, then nodded. "Yeah. It did."
She lay back, rolling onto her side.
She was quiet for a moment, then spoke again, her voice lower now.
"Before we ran into Xzar and Montaron," she said, "you sounded certain we wouldn't be alone much longer."
I frowned slightly. "I did?"
"Yeah," she murmured. "You said we'd need more people to survive. You didn't say it like a worry. You said it like a decision."
I stared up at the ceiling.
"It was intuition," I said.
She considered that, eyes already growing heavy.
"Hm," she murmured. "I suppose that makes sense."
She shifted closer, her voice softening as sleep tugged at the edges of it.
"You didn't know what we'd run into," she said. "You just knew the two of us wouldn't be enough."
Her breathing evened out.
"Like the bear," she added drowsily. "You didn't know it was there. You just knew we should be ready for something like it."
Her words trailed off.
"Oh," she murmured after a beat, half-asleep already.
"If you're up anyway… see if the innkeeper's got any day-old bread. Sometimes they'll part with it cheap. Or free, if you ask early enough."
Sleep took her before I could answer.
I lay still beside her, staring at the ceiling.
I hadn't known about the bear.
I hadn't known about Xzar and Montaron either.
But the certainty had felt the same.
I pulled on my boots quietly, eased the door open, and stepped into the hall.
The hallway smelled faintly of old wood and last night's smoke, the air cooler here than in the room. Early-morning quiet settled in layers—the distant clink of something being set down below, the low murmur of a voice I couldn't make out.
I started down the hall toward the stairs.
The floorboards creaked under my boots, dry and familiar, each step answered by a small, complaining sound from the wood beneath it.
One step.
One creak.
Then another.
The rhythm was comforting in a way I hadn't realized I needed.
I took three more steps.
There was a creak behind me.
Not an echo.
A beat late.
I slowed.
The sound came again.
Careful. Measured.
I stopped walking.
The hallway went still.
No creak.
No movement.
I stood there, listening, suddenly aware of how loud my own breathing sounded in the narrow space.
After a moment, I told myself what it was—old wood, settling. Someone shifting in a room. The inn waking up in pieces.
I took another step.
My foot touched down.
A creak answered it.
Then—half a breath later—another.
My stomach tightened.
I didn't turn around.
I walked again, slower this time, counting the sounds as they came.
Step.
Creak.
Step.
Creak.
Creak.
The second one didn't belong to me.
I reached the top of the stairs and stopped, hand hovering just above the rail.
Behind me, the floorboard creaked once more.
Closer now.
They were matching my pace.
Waiting for me to notice.
The creak came again.
Too close.
I turned.
He stood only a few steps behind me—close enough that he'd been pacing my footsteps on purpose, close enough that I should have seen him sooner and hadn't. Cloaked, still, already occupying the space I thought was empty.
His hands were raised.
Moving.
Not fast. Not dramatic. Just enough.
His lips moved once.
The air answered.
The pressure slammed down.
The hallway didn't freeze—but it caught, like the moment had snagged on something sharp. His hands hung mid-motion, the space between them faintly wrong, drawn tight around something unfinished.
I couldn't move.
Not because I was restrained.
Because every nerve reacted at once.
I didn't hear the incantation—but my body knew it anyway.
This one doesn't miss.
He was too close to run.
Too calm to bluff.
Too practiced to hesitate.
If that spell finished, I wouldn't even hear it happen.
My hand hovered near my sword.
Charging was stupid.
Waiting was worse.
The pause never lasted long.
I forced myself to breathe.
If I hesitated, I died.
If I committed, I might not.
I wrapped my fingers around the hilt.
The metal was solid. Cold. Real.
I drew—
—and stepped forward.