{IRIS}
How was I supposed to explain that I couldn't feel it?
That whatever arcane slept inside me was distant, muted—like a voice trapped behind layers of ice and fog?
"I…" My fingers curled at my side. "I don't—"
The words refused to come.
I didn't know how to manifest it.
I didn't know how to call it forth.
I barely knew it existed at all.
Sol's gaze sharpened, just slightly.
"You don't know how?" he asked—not unkindly, but plainly.
I shook my head.
Silence stretched between us.
The shadows around him shifted, reacting subtly to his attention, but never once straying from his control.
"…That's unusual," he said at last.
Not judgment. Observation.
"I can feel it," I blurted before I could stop myself. "Sometimes. But it's faint. Like it doesn't want to answer me."
It wasn't a lie but not the truth either. It was there, Lord Val said so, but I couldn't feel it.
Something flickered in his eyes then.
Interest.
