The foothills gave way to long, rolling grassland broken by low stone ridges. The air grew warmer. Ordinary birds returned. For three full days the party walked without crystal trees, repeating loops, or silver fog, and the absence of magical crisis made everyone slightly suspicious.
Kael voiced it first. “I keep waiting for the grass to remember my boots. Or the sky to start arguing. This much normal is unnatural.”
Nima checked her copied map for the fifth time that morning. “The Divide’s outer influence should not reach this far yet. According to the Blight’s records we still have a week of ordinary road.”
“According to the Blight’s records,” Sera repeated. “The same Blight that had been storing bird shapes for centuries without telling anyone.”
Tallen attempted a reassuring academic
