Nothing changed the day after the old man left.
That was the first sign.
Training resumed with its usual structure. Blades were issued. Orders were given. Sweat replaced thought. If there had been an awakening, it did not announce itself through sensation or clarity. My body moved as it always had, obeying discipline rather than curiosity.
Yet something felt misaligned.
Not wrong—misplaced.
As though the space around me had shifted a fraction inward.
During sparring, I noticed it first in the moments between movement. When my opponent adjusted his stance, I reacted before the adjustment was complete, not through prediction, but through certainty. It was not speed that carried me forward, but inevitability—as though the outcome had already decided to meet me halfway.
I dismissed it as familiarity.
That was a mistake.
It became harder to ignore during stamina training.
We were ordered to run the perimeter path, a circuit designed to erode pacing rather than endurance. I settled into rhythm, controlling breath, measuring distance. Halfway through, a loose stone slid underfoot.
I should have fallen.
Instead, the ground seemed to hesitate.
Only for a moment—brief enough to doubt afterward—but long enough for my balance to recover without correction. There was no jolt, no impact. Just an interruption, as though the fall had been considered and then dismissed.
I slowed without instruction.
No one else reacted.
That unsettled me more than the incident itself.
At night, rest became difficult.
Not because of pain or strain, but because the air felt restless. Still, yet expectant. When I lay still, my thoughts did not drift—they pressed outward, brushing against something just beyond awareness.
I found myself holding my breath without realizing it.
When I exhaled, the sensation faded.
I tested it again.
The pressure returned.
The third sign came by accident.
A wooden practice blade slipped from the rack during cleanup, striking the ground with enough force to splinter. I reached for it instinctively, too late to stop the fall.
The fragments did not scatter.
They paused mid-motion—just long enough for my hand to close around them—then dropped as though gravity had remembered itself all at once.
The sound echoed louder than it should have.
Someone laughed nearby, unaware.
I stood still, fingers numb, aware of nothing but the silence that followed.
I did not tell anyone.
Not because I feared consequences, but because I did not yet have language for what was happening. This was not control. Not casting. Not even intent.
It was response without command.
As though something had noticed me noticing it.
That night, I remembered the old man's words.
You make space for it.
I began to understand what he meant.
Magic, I realized, was not always learned.
Sometimes, it arrived because it had found somewhere it was already being held.