I pushed myself up from the stone floor.

  My body resisted. Not in pain, not in protest. Just… weight. As if the ground expected something from me.

  I stood anyway. The motion felt deliberate, each step asking for permission I hadn’t needed before.

  The world answered a fraction late.

  I shifted my weight, and only after I did did the pressure follow, settling into place like something remembering where it belonged.

  I rolled my shoulders once, more out of habit than relief, then walked toward Daeryon.

  He stood a short distance away, posture angled as if listening to something only he could hear.

  His stance shifted almost imperceptibly, as if he had recalculated where I was standing without looking.

  The space between us felt closer for it.

  “We’re done here,” I said. My voice sounded steadier than I felt.

  He turned toward me. His expression softened, just slightly.

  “I think we should go,” I added. “There’s still the third anchor, isn’t there?”

  Daeryon inclined his head. “Yes. One remains.”

  I nodded, then hesitated.

  Daeryon didn’t move. Not because he was waiting for me to speak, but because he was watching. Measuring.

  The pause stretched just long enough for me to realize he was adjusting, waiting for me.

  But for a moment, I forgot the weight in my core, drawn instead to the ruined fabric of his robe.

  I exhaled. “Before we go,” I said, gesturing vaguely, “we should… address your robe.” My hand lifted hesitantly.

  “It’s ruined,” I said more plainly. “Because of that bastard.”

  Daeryon glanced down, then back at me. A quiet pause hung between us.

  “Yes,” he said finally. Calm. Steady. “Leaving it like that would be… impractical.”

  “I can see that,” I said softly, letting a small, breathy smile slip past.

  “And… where would we even get another one?” I added.

  He gave a faint, almost imperceptible smile. “I can create one. It will take some time, it’s more intricate than a sword, but manageable.”

  Daeryon did not move right away.

  Instead, he reached into the air beside him and let his hand rest there, fingers slightly spread, as if feeling for the edge of something invisible. The ambient chi around his palm shifted, not gathering, not flaring, but thinning. Like mist pulled aside by a passing hand.

  A line appeared.

  It was as if space itself had been persuaded to remember a shape.

  The strand emerged slowly, matte and dark, absorbing light rather than reflecting it. It did not glow. It did not hum. It simply existed, stretching downward from his hand in a steady, patient descent.

  I watched, oddly transfixed.

  “This is different from how you make weapons,” I said.

  “Yes,” Daeryon replied. His attention never left the forming robe. “A weapon is defined by intent. A binding tool is defined by endurance.”

  The strand thickened as he spoke, layers folding into one another without seams. No sparks. No pressure waves. Just repetition. Care. Each pass reinforcing the last.

  “So you’re not shaping it all at once,” I said slowly. “You’re… letting it settle.”

  “Correct,” he said. “Forcing structure creates weakness over time. This must hold tension without resisting it.”

  I frowned faintly. “That sounds backwards.”

  “It is,” he agreed calmly. “Which is why it works.”

  The robe lengthened, coil by coil, pooling neatly on the stone at his feet. Plain. Unadorned. Almost disappointingly simple.

  “How long does something like this usually take?” I asked.

  “Longer than a blade,” he said. “Shorter than armor. It depends on how much trust you have in your abilities.”

  I glanced at the growing coil. “And I am sure you will create a perfect one.”

  Daeryon allowed himself a faint smile.

  Time passed quietly.

  Not the heavy silence from before, but an easy one. The kind that does not ask to be filled. The rope continued to form at an unhurried pace, each moment building on the last without urgency.

  I sat back against the stone, watching. Breathing steadier now.

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  When Daeryon finally lowered his hand, the robe severed itself cleanly from the air, complete.

  He gathered it once, testing the weight, then held it out to me.

  It was black. Entirely. No markings. No flare. I held it, surprised by how ordinary it felt.

  “That took… what,” I said, glancing around, trying to gauge the time. “Twenty minutes? Maybe thirty?”

  “Approximately,” he said.

  I turned the robe over in my hands. Tugged once. It did not stretch. Did not resist either.

  “Huh,” I murmured. “I thought it would take longer.”

  “And?” he prompted.

  “And,” I added, squinting at it, “I also thought it would look… more impressive.”

  Daeryon raised an eyebrow.

  “It’s just a robe,” I said. “No glow. No patterns. No dramatic flair. You practically made it from your chi. It should look you know...”

  “It is not meant to be admired,” he replied evenly. “It is meant to work.”

  I huffed a quiet breath of laughter. “Fair.”

  He inclined his head, clearly satisfied.

  When we started moving again, I noticed it immediately.

  The first step went where I expected.

  The second did not.

  My foot landed heavier than it should have, the stone beneath it responding with a delayed pressure that threw my balance forward.

  I caught myself instinctively, but the correction came too late. My body followed through on the mistake as if momentum had decided before I had.

  I stopped.

  Tried again.

  This time I moved slower.

  The result was worse.

  The ground answered late, my weight shifting in afterthought rather than intent. My chest tightened as my balance wavered, a quiet alarm ringing somewhere beneath my ribs.

  “This is wrong,” I said, breath low. “I can’t… my body isn’t doing what I want.”

  Daeryon stopped at once.

  “You are moving as you were,” he said. “Not as you are.”

  I swallowed. “That’s not helpful.”

  “It will be,” he said gently. He stepped closer. “Do not lead with your limbs. Lead with your core.”

  “My core feels like it’s full of stone.”

  “Yes,” he said. “That is why you should move it first.”

  I tried.

  The sensation was deeply unsettling. Like stepping forward before deciding to walk. My balance lagged behind my intent, then overcorrected, my body scrambling to follow something it no longer fully controlled.

  My hands trembled slightly.

  “I feel like I’m learning how to walk again,” I muttered. “Like a kid who forgot where their feet go.”

  Daeryon watched me with quiet focus. “That is not an inaccurate comparison.”

  I let out a small smile that was half frustration, half disbelief. “You know this is the second time you’ve helped me walk.”

  His expression softened. “Yes,” he said. “I am aware.”

  I steadied myself, tried again. Slower. More deliberate. Letting the weight settle before moving instead of after.

  It worked. Barely.

  But it worked.

  We resumed walking, unhurried now.

  After a short distance, Daeryon spoke again. “Our next destination is the Lake of Mists. It lies to the west.”

  I nodded, focusing on each step. “Sounds peaceful.”

  I kept walking.

  Slowly. Each step preceded by a quiet internal check, a brief moment where I let the weight in my core settle before my body followed.

  It was working, but not in a way that demanded attention. More like holding a note at the edge of breath.

  The path narrowed as we left the frozen cave behind.

  We headed west until stone gave way to packed earth, veined with pale roots.

  The delay was still there, but it no longer surprised me. I waited for it.

  Daeryon walked beside me, unhurried.

  The air felt smoother near him. I noticed it only because when he drifted a half step ahead, the resistance returned, faint but present. When he fell back into place, it eased again.

  I meant to say something, but my words tripped over themselves.

  “The name is literal,” he said after a minute. “The lake is rarely visible all at once.”

  “Because of the mist, I guess,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, that doesn’t sound very peaceful anymore.”

  “It is,” he replied calmly. “For those who understand stillness.”

  I huffed quietly. “That feels like a very selective definition.”

  He glanced at me. “Most definitions are.”

  “Do people live near it?” I asked.

  “No.”

  That answer came too quickly to be casual.

  I waited a few steps. “Because they don’t want to,” I said, “or because they can’t?”

  Daeryon did not answer right away. The silence stretched, thin but not uncomfortable.

  “Because it is not a place meant to be occupied,” he said at last. “It is meant to be passed.”

  “That’s not ominous at all.”

  He allowed the faintest curve of amusement. “You are improving at recognizing tone.”

  “I’ve had good practice,” I said.

  The air cooled as we climbed a shallow rise. Not cold. Just muted. Sound softened first. Our footsteps grew dull, as if the ground had learned to absorb them.

  Daeryon slowed without comment. I matched him without thinking.

  Even my breathing felt quieter, the air sliding in and out without resistance.

  Mist appeared ahead of us, low and pale, layered across the path. It did not move like fog. There was no direction to it, no wind shaping it. It simply occupied space, as if that space had decided to become uncertain.

  My movement became steady, controlled, but something else shifted. The weight in my core did not resist here. It did not lag or settle late.

  It hovered.

  That unsettled me more than resistance ever had.

  Daeryon noticed.

  His pace matched mine instantly, close enough that the air smoothed again, though the mist did not part for either of us.

  “We’re close,” he said.

  I nodded, eyes on the pale expanse ahead. The lake itself was not visible yet, only light diffused through white, making distance hard to judge.

  The light grew stronger as we moved, not brighter exactly, but fuller. It spread through the air as if the world ahead had forgotten how to cast shadows properly.

  The stone path softened underfoot, its edges blurring beneath the mist, until it felt less like approaching a place and more like being absorbed.

  Then the ground fell away.

  The lake revealed itself all at once, vast and impossibly still. Its surface was a pale mirror, not reflecting the sky so much as dissolving it.

  Water and mist blended seamlessly, the horizon erased by layers of white that rose and sank in slow, breathlike motions.

  The moonlight filtered through the fog from everywhere and nowhere at once, diffused until it lost direction.

  I could not tell where the moon was, or if it mattered here.

  The lake did not glitter. It glowed softly, reverently, like something being remembered rather than seen.

  It was... beautiful.

  In a way that made my chest ache without warning. The kind that invited stillness. The kind that asked for silence, not out of fear, but respect.

  The air was cool and damp, carrying the faint scent of water untouched by time. Sound dulled as we approached, my footsteps fading almost as soon as they were made, as if the mist took offense at noise and erased it out of courtesy.

  I stopped at the edge without realizing I had decided to.

  The lake stretched farther than it should have, its far side lost completely to the haze.

  The mist did not drift. It hovered, layered and deliberate, rising from the surface in slow curls that never quite dispersed.

  I watched one bank of mist for several breaths.

  It did not move.

  Not with the air. Not with us.

  It simply existed.

  A strange pressure settled against my awareness, not heavy. Just present. The weight in my core shifted, searching for purchase, the way it had when the ground answered late.

  Here, it did not answer at all.

  I swallowed.

  The beauty remained. Untouched. Perfectly composed. And yet something about it felt closed, like a door without a handle.

  The mist did not part for us. It did not acknowledge us. It did not even care whether we stood there or turned away.

  My breathing slowed on its own. This place didn't feel hostile.

  It felt indifferent.

  I glanced at the water again, at the way the light disappeared into it without reflection, without depth.

  It kept the weight in my core from settling.

  And I couldn't tell whether the lake was watching me, or if it had never needed to.