It started with a sound.
Not loud. Not violent.
Just a low shift beneath the bones of the world, like something heavy had turned over in its sleep.
Lindarion stopped walking.
Ashwing hadn't moved, but the air around him had changed. There was pressure now, thick and sharp, not from heat, from hunger.
Not physical, not the kind that could be solved with meat or firewood. This was the kind of hunger that reached in every direction at once.
The dragon's chest rose slowly. Wings spread. Then the air started bending. Lindarion felt it brush against his skin, pull at the edges of his coat. Not wind. Mana.
It peeled away from the forest in strands. From the snow. From the trees. From the stones. It lifted off the ground like it had forgotten what weight was. It wasn't chaotic. It wasn't desperate.
It was obedient.
It all moved toward Ashwing.
Ashwing inhaled once, deep, slow, steady and the mana flowed straight into him like he was built for it.
