A small pond. The surface of it barely larger than the clearing the second base had occupied, ringed by the ancient root formations that had shaped the depression over centuries, the water still and clear in the way of deep forest water that had not been disturbed recently.
The clarity was remarkable.
In a forest with the history of this one, with the corruption that had been present in its soil and water for however long the demons had been stationed here, clear water was not the expectation.
But the pond was not just clear.
It glowed.
Not brightly — not the conspicuous luminescence of active essence constructs or magical sources. The subtle, suffused glow of something that existed below the surface and expressed itself upward through the water's depth rather than at the surface. Soft. Blue-adjacent without being blue, the color of something that had no precise name because it had not been encountered often enough to need one.
Damien looked at the surface.
