Aria’s POV
The Warden started moving things.
Not the remnants. Not the stone. Small things.
Tav’s spare knife showed up on the ridge table instead of in his pack. The white stone Ridah gave me appeared on my blanket when I woke.
The mint we’d left in the bowl? Now growing in a thin line along the north tunnel where I’d pressed my hand to the wall.
Coren said it first. “It’s not taking. It’s tending.”
We stopped calling it “monitoring.” Ridah started calling it “keeping watch with.”
The dormant points stayed deep. The Warden’s pulse stayed steady. Seven beats at dusk, one for each of us. But now there was an eighth. Faint. Between beats.
I felt it before I understood it.
On the fourth morning, I walked the north tunnel alone again. Habit. The air was warmer there now. Not fr
