Not sharply.
Not enough to warn.
Just… a slow incline beneath our feet.
For a while, I thought nothing of it.
Then the ground stopped.
And the world opened.
Water.
Endless—at least, to my eyes.
Not a river.
Not a basin.
Something… wider.
They called it a lake.
I did not understand that word anymore.
The surface moved.
Not gently.
Not calmly.
Waves rolled toward the shore in long, uneven breaths—
their rhythm unfamiliar,
their sound deeper than the wind I had grown used to.
For a moment, I thought of Dunskar.
Of red dust.
Of dry air that scraped the throat.
This was the opposite.
And yet—it did not feel softer.
We arrived during the storm season.
The others spoke of it as routine.
Three months more, they said.
Three months of restless water.
Even now, before the storm fully breaks,
the lake does not stay still.
It shifts.
It answers something I cannot see.
The water was darker up close.
A deep blue.
Not transparent—not entirely.
It held its depth close,
revealing only what it chose.
The city stood behind stone.
Tall walls, worn but maintained.
A gate large enough to swallow caravans whole.
We entered with many others.
Inspection was brief.
Efficient.
No raised voices.
No unnecessary delay.
Inside, the ground changed again.
Stone beneath our feet.
Solid. Structured.
Further in—
wood began to appear.
Gradually.
Then everywhere.
The harbor.
That was where the city truly lived.
Ships lined the edges—some large enough to rival buildings,
others small, fast, constantly in motion.
Men and women moved between them with purpose.
No shouting beyond what was needed.
No chaos without direction.
Goods passed from hand to hand.
Crates. Sacks. Metal-bound containers.
Everything marked.
Everything moving.
The sound was layered.
Closer to the docks—
waves striking wood and hull.
Ropes tightening.
Wood shifting under weight.
Closer to the inner streets—
voices.
Trade.
Numbers.
The air carried something new.
Salt.
Not sharp.
But present.
Mixed with damp wood, iron, and something faintly organic.
It should have been unpleasant.
It wasn’t.
It felt… inhabited.
Alive.
I stood at the edge longer than I intended.
Watching the water.
Trying to understand its distance.
“Don’t look too hard,” Ryn said beside me.
I hadn’t noticed her approach.
“There’s nothing to see from here.”
I asked her what she meant.
She looked past me.
Toward the center.
Though there was nothing visible there.
“Not anymore.”
She paused. Just briefly.
“Some say there’s a structure out there,” she added.
“Old. Before the lake.”
I followed her gaze.
But the water gave nothing back.
Only movement.
Only light breaking against itself.
A library, she said.
Once.
Now—just depth.
I am beginning to understand something.
Places do not disappear.
They are buried.
And sometimes—the surface learns to forget them.
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