The yacht moved steadily away from the sleeping shoreline while the first light of morning slowly unfolded across the lake. From a distance the village had already begun to shrink into a quiet cluster of pale stone and terracotta roofs pressed gently against the hillside. The terraces where they had walked minutes earlier now looked delicate and distant, the climbing vines no more than dark brushstrokes against the soft green slopes.
Willow rested her elbows lightly on the edge of the table and watched the changing water.
At first the lake had been the color of steel beneath the fading night. Now the surface was slowly transforming. Pale gold began to slide across it in long luminous streaks as the sun lifted behind the mountains. Every small ripple caught the light differently, turning the water into a shifting field of brightness that seemed to move with its own quiet rhythm.
The yacht cut through the center of it with effortless ease.
