The lake was not supposed to be awake.

It had always been still — an obsidian stretch beneath the Vale’s scarred sky, reflecting what the world chose to show it. But now, the surface rippled like breathing glass, the faint shimmer of moonlight bent at strange, wrong angles, as if two different heavens were fighting for the same sky.

Elaria’s boots sank into the wet earth. Her reflection followed, hesitant, fractured into a dozen mirrored shards.

“Draven?” she whispered, her voice ...