The air itself had gone pale.
Something in the quality of the light, the pressure, the distant texture of the world had thinned and turned wrong in the span of a few breaths. Jason felt the change before anyone else. It hit him like a hook driven straight through the center of his chest—an invisible, absolute connection to a presence that had just opened its eyes after ten months of deliberate silence.
He stopped mid-step.
His hand flew to his sternum. Fingers clenched against fabric and skin as if he could physically hold whatever had just seized him in place. The residual cold of the street, the defeated Lords, the two ice elves—all of it receded behind the single overwhelming fact of that distant awakening.
Amarok's voice cut in from the side, rough with residual injury and fresh alarm.
"Jason? You okay?"
