The road narrowed until it was no longer a road at all.
Stone replaced dirt beneath Kael's boots, uneven slabs pressed into the earth as if something had once forced a path through the land and left it behind unfinished. The air grew cooler, heavier, carrying the faint mineral scent of deep ground.
This wasn't a settlement route.
It was a boundary.
Kael slowed, senses sharpening.
The hum within him deepened—not louder, but denser. It no longer felt like observation. It felt like proximity.
Ahead, the land dipped sharply into a shallow basin ringed by fractured stone pillars. Most had collapsed long ago, but a few still stood, leaning inward at unnatural angles, as if drawn toward the center.
Kael stepped forward.
The moment his foot crossed the basin's edge, the air shifted.
Not pressure.
Resistance.
It wasn't pushing him away. It wasn't pulling him in. It simply refused to behave normally. Sound dulled. Distance felt distorted, like space itself had been folded incorrectly.
Kael stopped in the basin's center.
"This is new," he murmured.
The ground beneath him responded.
A low vibration traveled through the stone, subtle but unmistakable. Not an attack. Not a warning.
Recognition.
Kael adjusted his breathing, letting the rhythm settle. The vibration eased, syncing faintly with his pulse.
So this was the next threshold.
Not violence.
Not pursuit.
A place where the world tested whether something belonged—or needed to be rejected.
Kael stood still, hands empty, posture neutral.
If this place intended to judge him, he would not rush its decision.
Above the basin, unseen, the night sky remained unchanged.
But beneath it, something old stirred