The fracture wasn't a clean break; it was a slow, agonizing groan, like ancient timber straining under a weight it was never built to carry.
It started with the voices. They weren't shouting—not yet. Instead, they were low, a rhythmic humming at the edges of the clearing that sounded like bees sensing a change in the weather. Small clusters of people began to drift apart. It was a subtle, physical rejection. They turned their shoulders just enough to shut Alistair out, creating pockets of private air. They weren't leaving—there was nowhere to go in the suffocating darkness of the Hubriś outskirts—but they were reclaiming the only thing they had left: the three feet of space immediately surrounding their own bodies.
