"You can come out."
Daniel's voice was neither loud nor threatening, but in the heavy silence of the forest, it was like a stone dropped into still water. An invisible ripple spread through the space, and for a few moments, nothing happened.
The tree behind him pulsed quietly, its luminous fruit glowing with a slow, deep rhythm, like a living heart beating in the heart of the forest, and this same rhythm made the silence heavier and more unnatural.
But Daniel waited.
The air around, at a point farther from the roots' range, rippled softly, like the surface of water touched by a weak breeze, and then, two presences, slowly and cautiously, emerged from within that distortion.
The Grand Minister.
And the Grand Knight.
This time, not with their usual authority, not with that dominant aura they had in the Holy Palace, but with a manner more like those who had entered an unknown territory and still didn't know its rules.
