The shift hit before I saw him.
Not sound.
Not movement.
Something deeper.
Like the air itself had been pulled tighter, stretched thin by something unseen, something approaching that everything else instinctively recognized before I did.
The fighters felt it.
I saw it in the way their movements faltered—not stopping, not retreating, but slowing just enough to acknowledge it.
To react.
To prepare.
My chest tightened slightly as I turned toward the direction I could feel it from.
And then—
He stepped out.
Ronan didn’t rush into the battlefield.
He didn’t charge.
Didn’t raise his voice.
He simply walked forward.
And everything adjusted.
It wasn’t forced.
It wasn’t commanded.
It just… happened.
The attackers shifted their stance, their focus tightening, their formation adju
