The apple at her boot rolled toward the basket. The air around the falling fruit quivered like the string of a harp plucked by an invisible hand. The heavier stone fulcrum and spite shuddered. For a moment it hung as if time had skidded: a suspended second that felt like ocean between heartbeats. Liora's breath fogged in the space between.
She could react then. She could make the earth tilt slightly, she could turn the stone's arc, she could make Vanya fall from her balcony in a mess of embroidered silk and humiliation. The old Liora—wolf and blade—would not hesitate. But that Liora was gone. In her place rose something quieter, something that had watched grief carve itself into the world and learned different rules.
