They did not come back immediately.
That was the first mistake.
Because if the attack had followed quickly—loud, obvious, brutal—it would have been familiar. Manageable. Something they could fight, block, outpace.
Instead, the forest watched.
The night settled too neatly after the retreat. The air cooled faster than it should have. Sounds returned, but not all of them. The insects resumed their chorus, but unevenly, as if some instinct deeper than habit had told them to stay quiet in certain places.
She lay awake long after the fire had burned down to embers, senses stretched thin and wide at the same time. The bond-field hummed around her, not loud, not intrusive, but undeniably present—like standing at the center of a lake and feeling every ripple before it reached the shore.
It was exhausting.
And it was getting stronger.
