The convergence did not fully settle after Dythrael's withdrawal. It pretended to. The land lay still enough to pass for stability, but Lindarion could feel the tension threaded through it, like a bowstring drawn and left waiting. Whatever boundary he had asserted would hold only as long as it remained inconvenient for Dythrael to cross it.
They moved anyway.
Eastward again, skirting the edge of the fracture zone rather than crossing its heart. Nysha insisted on it, citing terrain instability and unknown secondary effects, but Lindarion knew the deeper reason without her saying it aloud. If they walked straight into the convergence, they would be stepping into a space Dythrael already partially owned. Not claimed. Not conquered. But edited.
'We meet him where the world still remembers how to resist,' Lindarion thought.
