They reached the markers at dawn.
Stone posts rose from the plain at irregular intervals, each no taller than Kael's chest, their surfaces worn smooth by weather and time. No inscriptions remained—if there had ever been any at all. From a distance, the posts seemed randomly placed. Up close, their spacing suggested intention without clarity, as if the land had once tried to measure itself and stopped halfway through.
Kael felt nothing from them.
That, too, felt wrong.
He circled the nearest post slowly, keeping his hands to himself. The ground did not lean. The air did not thicken. The pulses in his ears remained absent, leaving a hollow quiet behind his thoughts.
Senna watched him with a narrowed gaze. "You usually feel something."
"Yes," Kael said. "Which means I'm not being noticed."
"Or you're avoiding notice."
He straightened. "There's a difference."
"Is there?"
Kael didn't answer.
They moved among the markers as the sun climbed, careful not to linger. The plain beyond stretched wide and open, dotted with low scrub and the occasional shallow depression where water gathered after rain. Nothing about it felt hostile. Nothing reacted.
The quiet pressed in.
By midmorning, they encountered the first sign that restraint had a cost.
A small caravan stood stalled near one of the depressions—three wagons, their wheels sunk unevenly into the earth. A pair of draft animals strained against their harnesses, muscles trembling, while two men shouted useless instructions from the side.
The ground beneath the wheels looked solid.
It wasn't.
Kael slowed, unease tightening in his chest.
Senna assessed the scene quickly. "They're stuck."
"Yes," Kael said. "But they shouldn't be."
They approached cautiously. One of the men noticed them and waved frantically.
"Don't step there!" he shouted, pointing. "The ground gives way without warning!"
Kael stopped where he was.
"What happened?" Senna called.
The man wiped sweat from his brow, panic edging his voice. "Nothing! That's the problem. It was fine yesterday. This morning, the wheels just—" He gestured helplessly. "It's like the earth forgot how to hold weight."
Kael's breath caught.
He knelt and pressed his palm lightly to the soil near the sunken wheel.
The ground was firm.
Too firm.
It didn't respond to his touch at all.
No adjustment. No acknowledgment.
It was behaving.
And in doing so, it was failing.
"This isn't collapse," Kael said quietly. "It's… omission."
Senna shot him a look. "Explain."
He shook his head. "I can't. Not cleanly."
He stood and addressed the men. "Back the animals away. Slowly."
They hesitated but complied.
As the strain eased, the ground beneath the wheels shifted—not dramatically, not violently, but subtly, allowing the wagons to settle free with a faint groan of wood and metal.
The men stared.
One laughed shakily. "That's it? Just… stepping back?"
Kael forced a smile. "Sometimes."
The caravan moved on quickly after that, the men avoiding Kael's gaze as they passed. Relief was tempered with something else—unease, suspicion, a sense that help had come at a price they didn't understand.
As the dust settled, Senna turned to Kael. "You didn't do anything."
"I know."
"And it fixed itself."
Kael shook his head. "It corrected an imbalance caused by nothing happening."
She frowned. "That makes no sense."
"It doesn't have to," he said. "It just has to persist."
They continued across the plain.
The farther they walked, the more Kael noticed small irregularities—places where the land failed to respond to ordinary use. A shallow stream that didn't ripple when crossed. Stones that refused to settle when disturbed. Shadows that clung too closely to objects, as if reluctant to detach.
None of it was catastrophic.
All of it was cumulative.
By afternoon, Kael's head ached—not from pulses, but from their absence. The silence pressed inward, leaving too much room for thought.
"This is worse," he said quietly.
Senna glanced at him. "Worse than being noticed?"
"Yes," Kael replied. "Because no one knows what to blame."
They encountered another group near dusk—a family traveling light, their faces drawn with exhaustion. The father greeted them cautiously, eyes flicking to Kael's pack.
"Have you noticed the ground acting strange?" he asked.
Kael hesitated.
"Yes," he said.
The man's shoulders sagged. "Good. Then it's not just us."
The mother spoke next, her voice tight. "Our youngest fell this morning. The ground didn't catch him."
Kael felt something twist in his chest.
"Is he hurt?" Senna asked.
"No," the woman said quickly. "Just shaken. But—" She swallowed. "It's like the land stopped caring."
Kael flinched.
They parted ways shortly after, the family moving on with wary glances back over their shoulders.
As night fell, Kael and Senna made camp near the edge of the plain. No fire. No unnecessary movement.
Kael sat apart, the map case open on his lap.
He stared at the parchment inside.
The blank space had grown again.
Not spreading, not tearing—simply expanding, as if the map were quietly agreeing to forget certain things.
Kael reached for the charcoal in his pack.
His hand hovered.
If he marked what he'd seen—the stalled caravan, the failing ground, the small omissions—he could anchor them. Give them weight. Force acknowledgment.
The pulses in his ears did not return.
Instead, a faint resistance settled behind his eyes.
If you record this, something seemed to suggest, it will happen more.
Kael's hand trembled.
Senna watched him from across the camp. "You going to write?"
He hesitated.
"No," he said finally.
He set the charcoal aside.
The resistance eased.
The blank space on the map deepened.
Kael closed the case with shaking hands.
"That was a choice," Senna said quietly.
"Yes."
"And?"
Kael swallowed. "I don't know if it was the right one."
She studied him for a long moment. "You didn't stop it from happening. You just made sure it wouldn't be remembered."
The words landed heavily.
Kael stared out into the dark, listening to the quiet that now came too easily.
"I think," he said slowly, "that omission is also a form of violence."
Senna didn't argue.
Far across the plain, the stone markers stood unmoving, their purpose half-remembered, half-forgotten.
The world adjusted again—not sharply, not dramatically—but enough to account for what had not been recorded.
And Kael, sitting with a map that was learning how to forget, understood that restraint did not come without casualties.
Some losses did not break the world.
They hollowed it.