The presence did not cross the river.
It lingered.
Aren felt it like pressure behind the eyes, a low hum in the bones. Not hunger. Not rage. Curiosity sharpened by age. Whatever watched from the far bank was old enough to remember a world before restraint, before agreements and anchors and careful lines drawn around power.
Kael stepped back first.
"We shouldn't stay here," he said. "It's aware of us."
Aren didn't argue. Awareness was the most dangerous stage. Predators that rushed could be killed. Those that observed learned.
They returned to the city without speaking, the river whispering behind them in uneven rhythms. When Aren finally looked back, the shimmer was gone, as if it had never been there at all.
That night, Lareth learned what fear without magic felt like.
There were no ward-lights to keep the dark polite. No soft barriers humming reassurance. Torches burned unevenly, shadows stretching too long, bending where they shouldn't. Every sound carried—footsteps, coughs, muffled sobbing. The city felt naked.
Aren took the first watch on the wall.
From there, he could see the scars the breaking had left—collapsed districts, twisted towers, the faint glow of unstable magic still bleeding out of the ground like heat from buried coals. He wondered how many places across the world looked the same now. How many people were staring into altered skies, waiting for something to finish what had started.
His shoulder throbbed. The dark lines beneath his skin had spread slightly, branching like frost cracks. He flexed his hand, testing his grip.
Still strong.
For now.
Below, boots approached. Sereth climbed the steps slowly, without attendants, without ceremony. She leaned on her staff more than she let on.
"You should have someone else take over," she said. "You haven't rested."
Aren didn't turn. "Sleep won't make this quieter."
She joined him at the wall, eyes scanning the horizon.
"You felt it too," she said.
"Yes."
She nodded. "Then we must speak plainly."
Aren finally faced her. "Then don't protect your words."
Sereth exhaled. "The presence you sensed is not singular. It is a class of being we once called Listeners."
Aren frowned. "Never heard of them."
"Few have," she said. "They predate recorded magic. Entities that do not wield power, but respond to it. They observe imbalance. When the world tilts too far in one direction, they wake."
"And do what?"
Sereth's mouth tightened. "They correct."
Aren looked back toward the dark beyond the walls. "Correction can mean many things."
"Yes," she said softly. "Including erasure."
Silence stretched between them.
"You didn't tell the council," Aren said.
"They would panic."
"They deserve the truth."
"They deserve time," Sereth countered. "Something panic does not allow."
Aren studied her, searching for the arrogance he had expected from someone who had helped break the world. Instead, he found exhaustion. And something closer to fear than pride.
"What do you need from me?" he asked.
She hesitated. "I need someone who understands survival without reliance. Someone who can move beyond the city."
Aren's jaw tightened. "You want scouts."
"I want witnesses," Sereth said. "If the Listeners are waking, we need to know what they respond to. What calms them. What enrages them."
"And you can't send mages," Aren said.
She shook her head. "Not yet. Magic draws attention now."
Aren glanced at his marked arm. "So do I."
Sereth followed his gaze. "That corruption—"
"Is stable," Aren said. "For now."
She nodded. "Then you are exactly who we need."
At dawn, Aren left the city with six others.
They were not soldiers in the traditional sense. A hunter whose traps no longer relied on enchantment. A former mage who refused to cast but still understood patterns. Two guards, steady and quiet. A cartographer. And Kael.
"You don't have to come," Aren told him as they passed through the eastern gate.
Kael adjusted the strap of his pack. "I do."
Aren didn't press further. Some choices explained themselves.
The land beyond Lareth felt wrong in subtle ways.
Grass grew in uneven patches, lush in one place, brittle in the next. Birds flew wide arcs around invisible points. The air thickened and thinned unpredictably, like breath held too long then released.
By midday, they reached a village that no longer existed.
The houses were intact. The fields untended but not destroyed. No bodies. No blood.
Just absence.
Kael swallowed. "They didn't flee."
"No," Aren agreed. "They were taken."
The hunter crouched, touching the ground. "No tracks. No signs of struggle."
The former mage closed her eyes, not casting, just feeling. "Something passed through," she said. "Not violently. Deliberately."
Aren felt it then—a faint echo, like a decision made and already justified.
They moved on in silence.
By evening, they found survivors.
A small group huddled beneath a collapsed stone bridge—three adults, two children. Their eyes were wide, their movements sharp with fear. One man raised a rusted spear when Aren approached.
"We're not here to take," Aren said calmly. "We're passing through."
The man hesitated, then lowered the spear slightly. "You should turn back."
Kael stepped forward. "What happened here?"
The woman clutched the children closer. "The sky listened."
Aren felt a chill. "Explain."
"There was a sound," the man said. "Like the world thinking. Then… questions. Not spoken. Felt."
Kael's breath caught. "What kind of questions?"
The man's hands trembled. "Why do you draw so deeply? Why do you refuse to change? Why do you demand without cost?"
Aren closed his eyes briefly.
"And then?" he asked.
The woman's voice broke. "The ones who answered wrong… vanished."
"Answered how?" Kael asked.
"With magic," she said. "With anger. With denial."
Aren opened his eyes. "And you?"
"We didn't answer," the man said. "We hid. We let it pass."
Aren straightened.
That night, they camped far from the bridge, fires small, voices low.
"They're testing us," Kael said. "Not attacking blindly. Evaluating."
"Judging," the cartographer whispered.
Aren stared into the fire. "Then we need to learn the rules."
Kael looked at him sharply. "You think there are rules?"
"There always are," Aren said. "Even if they're cruel."
Later, while the others slept, Aren sat alone, cleaning his blade.
The presence returned—not overwhelming, but unmistakable.
A pressure. A focus.
This time, it did not observe from afar.
It brushed against him.
Images flickered in his mind—not memories, but impressions. Cities glowing too brightly. Rivers bent out of shape. Magic screaming under strain. Then quieter scenes—hands planting crops, walls built without spellwork, people adapting.
A question formed—not in words, but intent.
Why do you endure?
Aren swallowed.
He did not reach for magic. Did not reach for anger.
He answered the only way he knew how—by thinking of the borderlands. Of winters survived without wards. Of people choosing one another when power failed.
Because survival is a responsibility, he thought. Not a privilege.
The pressure lingered.
Then eased.
At dawn, Aren woke with blood on his sleeve.
The corruption on his arm had receded slightly, lines duller, less angry.
Kael noticed immediately. "What did you do?"
Aren flexed his hand. "I listened."
Kael exhaled slowly. "Then the world may yet be salvageable."
Aren looked toward the horizon, where the land shimmered faintly, reshaping itself.
"Salvageable," he said. "Yes. But not forgiving."
Behind them, far beyond sight, Lareth waited—fragile, stubborn, alive.
And ahead, the Listeners continued to wake, one by one, weighing whether the world deserved to keep going.