The trail was older than Kael expected.

  Not ancient — the earth wasn’t hardened or cracked with age — but it carried the quiet certainty of repeated passage. Leaves lay thinner here. Roots had been worn smooth where countless feet had stepped. The undergrowth pulled back just enough to form a narrow ribbon of darker soil winding between the trees.

  Something used this path often.

  That thought should have been comforting.

  It wasn’t.

  Kael walked at the front now, Christ trailing a few steps behind. They’d fallen into the formation naturally over the past hour — Kael navigating, Christ scanning their rear and flanks. Neither had said anything about it. Survival had a way of assigning roles without discussion.

  Sunlight filtered down in broken shards through the canopy, sliding across Kael’s arms and face as the branches shifted overhead. The air smelled damp and rich, thick with moss and decomposing leaves. Every breath tasted faintly earthy, like the forest itself was settling in their lungs.

  Kael kept his awareness stretched outward.

  Ten meters. Roughly.

  Movement flickered constantly at the edges of that invisible boundary. Small things mostly. Leaves falling. Insects darting. Branches swaying lazily in the breeze. The forest was never truly still; it just moved in ways slow enough that humans rarely noticed.

  Now he noticed everything.

  It was exhausting.

  “You keep slowing down,” Christ said quietly behind him.

  Kael didn’t turn. “I’m not trying to.”

  “Then why do you keep doing it?”

  Kael exhaled slowly. “I’m thinking.”

  “Dangerous pastime.”

  Kael almost smiled.

  “If I can absorb movement,” he said, stepping over a root, “I should be able to use it too.”

  Christ made a small thoughtful sound. “Makes sense.”

  “I stopped bullets,” Kael continued. “I slowed that spear.”

  “You also collapsed immediately after.”

  “Details.”

  Christ snorted softly.

  Kael slowed again — deliberately this time. He watched a leaf tumble from above, twisting gently as it drifted toward the ground. It moved lazily, harmlessly, carried by a breeze too weak to feel.

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  Movement.

  Tiny. Weak. Easy.

  Kael reached for it.

  Not with his hands. Not with muscles. Just… intent.

  The sensation was faint, like trying to grasp a thought that kept slipping away. But for the briefest moment, the leaf’s descent changed. It didn’t stop. It didn’t reverse. It simply… hesitated.

  A fraction of a second.

  Then it continued falling.

  Kael blinked.

  “Did you just trip over air?” Christ asked.

  Kael ignored him. His heart beat faster.

  “Watch this.”

  He started walking again, focusing on his own motion now. On the rhythm of his steps. The shifting weight of his body. The forward momentum carried from one stride to the next.

  Movement.

  He reached inward, toward that invisible pool in his chest. The sensation stirred in response, rippling like disturbed water.

  Pull.

  The world didn’t change dramatically. There was no flash, no surge, no dramatic burst of power.

  But his next step landed faster than expected.

  Then the next.

  Kael stumbled slightly as his pace surged ahead of what his body anticipated. He caught himself before he could fall, boots scraping against packed earth.

  Christ blinked. “Okay, what was that?”

  Kael stared down at his own hands, breathing a little harder. “I think… I sped myself up.”

  Christ’s eyebrows rose. “You think?”

  “I didn’t do it on purpose,” Kael admitted. “Not exactly.”

  “That’s reassuring.”

  Kael laughed under his breath, a quiet, startled sound that felt foreign in his chest. The sensation lingered faintly — a warmth beneath his ribs, like the last ripples after a stone dropped into water.

  “If I can take movement,” Kael murmured, “I should be able to give it back.”

  “Preferably without collapsing.”

  “Preferably.”

  They continued along the path, the forest gradually thickening again around them. The air grew cooler as the trail dipped into a shallow hollow where sunlight struggled to reach the ground. Moss coated tree trunks in thick green blankets, and vines draped between branches like sagging ropes.

  “You realize this path could lead to something that eats us,” Christ said.

  Kael nodded. “Most things out here probably do.”

  “And we’re following it anyway.”

  “Better than wandering blindly.”

  Christ considered that. “Fair.”

  They walked in silence for several minutes.

  Then Christ spoke again, voice quieter this time. “You ever think about how big this place is?”

  Kael glanced back. “The forest?”

  “The world.”

  Kael slowed slightly.

  “In the March,” Christ continued, stepping over a fallen branch, “everything felt small. Walls. Cages. Corridors. Even the sky.”

  He looked upward through the fractured canopy. “Out here… it just keeps going.”

  Kael followed his gaze. The treetops swayed gently, leaves whispering against one another like distant voices.

  “Feels like we stepped into something we don’t understand,” Christ finished.

  Kael nodded slowly. “We did.”

  The path curved gently ahead, bending around a cluster of massive trees whose roots bulged from the earth like knotted muscle. The ground dipped slightly, the soil growing softer and darker beneath their boots.

  Kael slowed instinctively.

  Something tugged at the edge of his awareness.

  Movement.

  Not small. Not scattered.

  Heavy.

  Rhythmic.

  He stopped.

  Christ immediately froze behind him. “What?”

  Kael didn’t answer. He focused instead, pushing his awareness outward as far as it would go.

  The movement came from ahead. Beyond the next curve in the trail. Slow. Powerful. Each step sending faint tremors through the invisible boundary around him.

  Big.

  Very big.

  Kael swallowed.

  “Something’s there,” he whispered.

  Christ’s voice dropped to a breath. “How bad?”

  Kael didn’t answer right away.

  The movement stopped.

  Silence flooded the forest.

  Then the underbrush ahead parted with a slow, deliberate rustle.

  A shape emerged between the trees.

  Huge. Broad. Too tall. Too still.

  Kael’s breath caught.

  The creature lifted its head.

  And its eyes locked onto his.

  Christ leaned slightly to the side to see past Kael.

  He exhaled once.

  “Well,” he said quietly, “fuck.”