The logic of the world did not just feel thin; it felt as if it were being rewritten under their feet as they walked.
Aldwin stopped mid-stride, his robes swirling around his ankles like a grounded cloud. He turned to Eris, his expression a chaotic map of confusion and dawning realization.
The easy, academic humor from the library had been stripped away, leaving only the raw, exposed nerve of a man who had suddenly lost his orientation.
"What do you mean?" Aldwin asked, his voice barely a whisper against the stone. "What do you mean, you are not the only one?"
He looked at her as if she were a riddle he couldn't solve, his mind racing to find a metaphor or a myth that could contain her statement. Not the only one with a dragon. It was a terrifying plurality. Their current world could barely survive one; the idea of two was a tectonic shift.
