The invitation did not shimmer or call out.
It simply remained open.
Rhys felt the subtle difference immediately—not as relief, not as certainty, but as trust. Trust that he did not need to anticipate meaning for it to arrive. Trust that whatever took shape ahead would do so in its own time, and that he would recognize it not by intensity, but by resonance.
Caria walked beside him, her steps neither echoing nor fading, each one belonging fully to the moment it occupied. There was no sense of escort or following between them now—only parallel presence, two awarenesses moving through the same continuity without needing to converge or diverge.
Puddle's waters moved with a similar intelligence. Its flow adapted without calculation, responding to subtle shifts in terrain, air, and intention. It did not seek alignment; it embodied it. In its calm surface, Rhys glimpsed a quiet truth: that constancy was not the absence of change, but the capacity to absorb it without losing coherence.
