The arid hills softened into scrub, then into long, wet meadows that smelled of salt and rotting reeds. The coastal pulse grew clearer with every hour—less a single pressure than a rhythmic push-and-pull, like a tide that had forgotten which direction was supposed to win. By the third day the party walked through air that occasionally carried the sound of waves from a sea they could not yet see.
Kael sniffed the wind and grimaced. “I smell future dampness and poor life choices. My request for a tavern is hereby amended to include dry socks.”
Coren, still marveling at continuous existence, walked with the careful attention of a man cataloguing every new sensation. “The old records mentioned coastal anomalies only in footnotes. Footnotes that later deleted themselves. I am beginning to und
