"Hey, brother! What's wrong?"
As he was lost in thought, a broad hand landed with some force on Roland's shoulder, shattering his turbulent thoughts.
Holland had appeared beside him at some point. Following Roland's earlier gaze, he also squinted, carefully studying the inky-black, sunken patch of water and the dense fog lingering above it.
But in Holland's eyes, it was just another perfectly ordinary scene in this treacherous reef.
An unnervingly calm, pitch-black water surface, surrounded by menacing, slick rocks, and the year-round fog that carried the stench of the sea and a faint smell of sulfur.
There was no space-rending Illusion, no ripples of residual Energy, and certainly not that pair of chilling, wicked dragon eyes.
Everything was just desolate and deathly still, filled with nature's untamed, primal danger, but with no hint of anything beyond the ordinary.
