Her foot caught on a root and she went down hard, palms scraping against bark and stone. The scream finally came—high, thin, useless in the darkness.
The creature stopped.
Athelia scrambled backward, breathing in ragged gasps. It was massive. Horse-sized, maybe bigger. Silver-grey fur that seemed to absorb moonlight rather than reflect it. Golden eyes fixed on her with an intelligence that made her stomach drop.
Not a wolf. Couldn't be. Wolves didn't get that big. Didn't move like that. Didn't look at you like they were deciding something important.
It took a step forward.
She pressed back against the oak, hand finding that strange shimmer in the air again—warm now, almost vibrating against her palm. The creature's ears swiveled toward the sensation.
Then it did something impossible.
It lowered itself to the ground. Not crouching to pounce. Lowering. Ears pinning flat against its skull. A sound came from its throat—high, almost plaintive. Whining.
Athelia's breath caught. The massive predator rolled slowly onto its back, exposing its belly, paws curled in the air. Still whining. Still watching her with those golden eyes.
What the fuck.
Her heart hammered against her ribs. This didn't make sense. Predators didn't submit. Didn't show vulnerability. Unless—
She pushed off the tree, taking one step sideways. Testing.
The creature's head snapped toward her movement and a growl erupted from its chest—deep, bone-rattling, a sound that bypassed her brain and went straight to some primal part of her that screamed FREEZE.
She froze.
The growl cut off. Back to whining. Belly still exposed. Paws still curled.
"Okay," she whispered. "Okay, I'm—I'm not running."
Couldn't run. Her legs wouldn't work. Fear had her pinned just as effectively as those golden eyes.
But something else was happening. The terror was still there, sharp and bright, but underneath it... something else. Curiosity? Confusion? The absurd urge to laugh at the sheer impossibility of what she was seeing.
A massive predator. On its back. Whining at her.
"Does the big bad wolf need tummy rubs?" The words came out before she could stop them, half-hysterical, ridiculous.
She took a step forward.
Then another.
The creature went completely still. Watching. Waiting.
Athelia knelt beside it, hand trembling as she reached out. This was insane. This was how people died in nature documentaries. But her hand kept moving, drawn by something she didn't understand.
Her palm made contact with fur.
The world shifted.
Not visibly. Nothing changed that she could see. But something fundamental realigned, like a lock clicking into place, like a circuit completing. Warmth flooded through her palm, up her arm, spreading through her chest in waves that felt like recognition. Like coming home. Like being claimed by something ancient and patient and utterly certain.
The creature made a sound—not quite a growl, not quite a whine. Its whole body shuddered under her touch.
Athelia scratched gently, fingers sinking into impossibly soft fur. The creature's eyes half-closed and that sound came again, deeper now, almost a purr if wolves could purr.
"What are you?" she whispered.
Golden eyes opened fully, meeting hers.
And for just a moment, she could have sworn they looked almost human. Almost desperate. Almost—
Her phone rang.
Athelia jerked awake, heart slamming against her ribs, hand tangling in her sheets. Sunlight streamed through her window. Her phone buzzed insistently on the nightstand.
She grabbed it, disoriented, breathing hard. "What?"
"Jesus, Thel, did I wake you?" Her roommate Casey's voice, tinny through the speaker. "It's past nine. You coming to class or did you get lost in the forest again?"
Athelia sat up, pressing her free hand to her face. Her palm tingled. "I—what?"
"Constitutional Law? The class you're literally paying thousands of dollars to take? Ring any bells?"
"Yeah. Yes. I'm—" She looked around her room. How did she get here? When did she get home? "I'll be there. Give me twenty minutes."
"Your funeral if you're late. Professor Mendez already hates you."
The call ended.
Athelia sat in her bed, staring at her palm. It still felt warm. Like she'd been touching something. Someone.
She could still feel the fur under her fingers.
A dream. Had to be a dream. She'd fallen asleep reading about... what had she been reading? Old case law. Something about jurisdictional boundaries and—
Her phone buzzed again. Text from Casey: seriously get ur ass to class
Athelia threw off the covers and immediately regretted it. Her legs felt like she'd been walking for hours. Muscles sore in her calves and thighs, the kind of deep ache that came from hiking rough terrain in the dark.
Just a dream.
She grabbed clothes from the floor—jeans, yesterday's shirt, her law school hoodie. Constitutional Law started in fifteen minutes and Professor Mendez had already threatened to mark her absent if she was late one more time. Three absences meant automatic failure. She was at two.
The bathroom mirror showed what she expected: hair tangled with—
She stopped.
Pulled a small twig from her hair. Pine needles scattered into the sink.
Athelia stared at them. Then at her hands. Dirt under her fingernails. Scratches across her palms that she didn't remember getting.
Her phone buzzed. Casey again: MOVE
She splashed water on her face, didn't bother with makeup, yanked her hair into a messy bun that hid most of the evidence. The pine needles went down the drain. The scratches... she'd figure that out later.
Backpack. Laptop. Keys. Phone. Out the door.
The apartment was blessedly empty—Casey already gone, their third roommate Jess probably still asleep. Athelia took the stairs two at a time, ignoring the burn in her legs, and burst out onto the sidewalk.
Campus was a ten-minute walk if she hurried. Eight if she ran.
She ran.
October air bit at her face, cold enough that her breath came out in visible puffs. Trees lining the pathway were half-bare, leaves crunching under her feet with each step. Normal. Everything was normal. Just another Thursday morning sprint to class because she'd overslept.
Except.
Athelia slowed as she passed the old oak near the library entrance. Massive tree, probably a hundred years old, trunk wider than she could wrap her arms around. She'd walked past it a thousand times.
She stopped.
Her hand reached out without conscious thought, palm pressing against rough bark. And for just a second—less than a second, barely a heartbeat—the air shimmered. Like heat rising from pavement, like something invisible rippling between her and the tree.
She yanked her hand back.
The shimmer disappeared.
"You okay?"
Athelia spun. A guy she vaguely recognized from her Torts class stood a few feet away, coffee in hand, looking concerned.
"Yeah. I'm—fine. Late for class."
She didn't wait for a response. Didn't look back at the tree. Kept walking, faster now, heart hammering against her ribs for reasons that had nothing to do with running.
The law building loomed ahead, all modern glass and steel trying to look important. She took the steps up to the main entrance and nearly collided with a group of 1Ls huddled around their phones.
"Excuse me, sorry—"
One of them looked up and Athelia's breath caught.
Golden eyes.
For a fraction of a second, the kid's eyes looked golden. Not brown, not hazel—golden like fire, like a predator watching prey.
She blinked.
Brown. Normal brown eyes looking at her with mild annoyance.
"Watch where you're going," the kid muttered.
Athelia mumbled an apology and pushed past them into the building. Her hands were shaking. Lack of sleep. Had to be. Or maybe she was getting sick. That would explain the soreness, the confusion, the—
No. She wasn't going down that path. It was stress. Law school. Normal breakdown territory.
They reached the classroom just as Professor Mendez was closing the door. He was a small man, fifties, with wire-rimmed glasses and the kind of precise cruelty that came from years of breaking down overconfident law students.
"Ms. Winters. How generous of you to join us."
"Sorry, Professor. I—"
"Save it. Sit."
Athelia slid into her usual seat near the back, Casey claiming the chair beside her. The classroom was standard law school fare—tiered seating, long tables, a wall of windows overlooking the quad. Thirty students, all looking varying degrees of exhausted and caffeinated.
Professor Mendez moved to the front of the room, pulling up a case on the projector.
"Today we continue our discussion of jurisdictional boundaries. Who can tell me the holding in International Shoe v. Washington?"
Hands went up throughout the classroom, eager students ready to demonstrate their mastery of basic jurisdiction principles.
But Professor Mendez's gaze settled on someone two rows ahead of Athelia.
"Or perhaps Mr. Cael'Sereith can enlighten us, since he actually arrived on time."
A voice from the front—smooth, deep, with an undercurrent of absolute certainty that made every other voice in the room sound uncertain by comparison.
"Minimum contacts establish whether a defendant has sufficient connection to the forum state to justify the court's jurisdiction without violating due process. International Shoe created the framework, but the real question isn't about contacts—it's about boundaries. What gives one authority the right to impose its rules on someone from outside its territory?"
He paused, and Athelia caught his profile. Dark hair pulled back in a low ponytail, sharp features, the kind of presence that suggested either martial arts training or something else entirely.
"More critically," he continued, "what happens when the entity in question existed before those boundaries were drawn? Before the authority creating those rules even came into being?"
The room went quiet. That wasn't a law student answer. That was philosophy. History. Something older.
Professor Mendez frowned. "Interesting perspective, Mr. Cael'Sereith. Though I'd appreciate answers grounded in existing precedent rather than theoretical abstraction."
"Apologies, Professor." The voice carried something that might have been amusement. "Sometimes I forget how young these laws are."
A few students snickered. Athelia found herself leaning slightly, trying to get a better look at whoever had just called constitutional law "young" like he'd been around when it was drafted.
Athelia pulled out her laptop, opened her notes, tried to focus.
International Shoe. Minimum contacts. Personal jurisdiction. She'd read this case a dozen times.
But when she looked at her screen, the words seemed to shimmer and rearrange themselves. Not visibly. Not anything anyone else would notice. But underneath the typed notes about due process and forum state, she could almost see... something else. Older words. Different rules.
Her hand moved to her trackpad without conscious thought, opening a blank document.
And she started typing.
Not notes. Not anything related to the class discussion happening around her. Just... words. Flowing from somewhere she didn't recognize, filling the screen faster than she should be able to type.
The law of the old kingdom stated that boundaries could not contain those of royal blood. The barrier was not meant to keep them in. It was meant to keep them from remembering.
Athelia stared at what she'd written.
What the fuck.
She deleted it. Deleted it all. Tried to focus on Professor Mendez, who was now calling on someone to explain the Burger King v. Rudzewicz case.
Casey leaned over, whispering. "You taking notes or writing a novel?"
"Notes. Just... notes."
But when she looked back at her screen, her hand had moved again. She'd opened her tablet's drawing app—something she never used because she couldn't draw, had never been able to draw beyond terrible stick figures in elementary school.
On the screen: a wolf.
Not a cartoon. Not a child's drawing. A fully rendered, anatomically correct dire wolf, silver-grey fur detailed down to individual strands, golden eyes that seemed to watch her from the page.
She'd drawn it. Just now. In the thirty seconds she'd been distracted.
"Holy shit," Casey breathed, looking over her shoulder. "When did you learn to draw like that?"
Athelia's hand was still moving. Adding shadows. Depth. The curve of the wolf's spine as it rolled onto its back, belly exposed, paws curled in the air.
She dropped the stylus like it had burned her.
"Ms. Winters." Professor Mendez's voice cut through the room like a blade. "Perhaps you'd like to share with the class what's more interesting than jurisdictional analysis?"
Every head turned toward her.
Athelia's face burned. "Sorry, Professor. I was just—"
"You were just ignoring my lecture to doodle in your notes. I assume you can answer my question, then. How does the minimum contacts standard apply in cases involving online commerce?"
Her mind went blank. She'd read this. She knew this. But all she could think about was the wolf on her screen, the golden eyes watching her, the feel of fur under her fingers.
"I..." she started.
Professor Mendez smiled. It wasn't kind. "Perhaps if you spent less time on artwork and more time engaging with the material, you'd be able to participate meaningfully in class discussion."
Someone snickered.
"Now, let's try someone who actually did the reading. Mr. Chen?"
The kid in front of Athelia started talking, something about Zippo Manufacturing and the sliding scale test, but she barely heard it. Her eyes were fixed on the drawing.
She hadn't drawn that. Couldn't have drawn that. But there it was, perfect and detailed and somehow more real than anything else on her screen.
Casey nudged her. "Seriously, when did you learn to do that?"
"I didn't," Athelia whispered.
"What do you mean you didn't? You just—"
"I don't know how to draw. I've never been able to draw."
Casey gave her a look that said she was worried Athelia had finally snapped under law school pressure. "Thel, I literally just watched you create that. It's incredible."
Athelia looked at her hands. They weren't shaking anymore. They felt steady. Sure. Like they'd always known how to do this, like the skill had been sleeping inside her waiting to wake up.
Like something had unlocked when she touched—
No. No, she was not going down that path. It was a dream. A vivid, weird dream brought on by stress and too much coffee and not enough sleep. None of it was real.
The wolf on her screen looked back at her with golden eyes that knew she was lying.
Class continued around her. Professor Mendez moved on to the next case, the next victim, the next dissection of legal theory. Athelia tried to take actual notes. Tried to focus on personal jurisdiction and forum shopping and all the things that had seemed important yesterday.
But her hand kept drifting back to the drawing.
She added details without meaning to. The texture of the moss beneath the wolf's body. The trees in the background, dark and oppressive. Her own hand reaching out, fingers inches from silver-grey fur.
"Ms. Winters, I've asked you three times to close your laptop."
Athelia's head snapped up. Professor Mendez was standing directly in front of her desk, and the entire class had gone silent.
"I—what?"
"Your laptop. Close it. Now. Or leave my classroom."
"Sorry, I didn't—"
"I don't care what you didn't. You're disrupting my class with your complete lack of attention. Close the laptop or get out."
Heat crawled up her neck. She closed the laptop, the drawing disappearing from view but not from memory.
Professor Mendez returned to the front of the room, launching into an explanation of the effects test and Calder v. Jones that Athelia couldn't follow because her mind was somewhere else entirely.
In the woods. In the darkness. Touching something that shouldn't exist.
The class dragged on for another forty minutes. When Professor Mendez finally dismissed them, Athelia shoved her laptop into her bag and headed for the door without waiting for Casey.
"Hey, wait up!"
Casey caught her in the hallway outside the classroom. Students streamed past them, heading to their next class or the library or anywhere that wasn't here.
"What's going on with you?" Casey asked, genuinely concerned now. "You've been weird all morning. Weirder than usual."
"I'm fine. Just tired."
"You're not fine. You show up late covered in scratches, you're drawing things you claim you can't draw, you're completely checked out in class—"
"I said I'm fine."
"Athelia—"
"I need to go. I have... I need to go to the library. Research."
It was a lie. She had no idea what she needed. But she couldn't stand here in the hallway with Casey looking at her like she was breaking down, couldn't explain something she didn't understand herself.
She walked away before Casey could argue, heading down the hall toward the back exit. The library was on the other side of campus, but she didn't care. She needed space. Needed to think.
Needed to figure out what the hell was happening to her.
The exit door opened onto a small courtyard, mostly empty at this time of day. Athelia sank onto a bench, pulled out her laptop, and opened the drawing again.
The wolf stared back at her. Belly exposed. Vulnerable. Waiting.
"Hey. Athelia, right?"
She was shoving her laptop into her bag when the voice made her look up. The guy from class—Cael'Sereith, the one who'd called constitutional law "young"—standing beside her with two coffees.
Up close, he was even more striking. Tall, fit, with features that looked carved rather than born. Dark eyes watching her with an intensity that should have been uncomfortable but somehow... wasn't.
"Uh. Yeah. Athelia Winters."
"Severen Cael'Sereith." He held out one of the coffees. "Peace offering. You looked like you needed it more than I did."
She took it automatically, the warmth seeping into her cold fingers. "Thanks. You didn't have to—"
"Mendez ambushed you. First few weeks are brutal enough without that." He gestured to the empty space on the bench. "Mind if I sit?"
"Sure."
He sat with controlled grace, the kind that suggested either years of training or something else entirely. Something Athelia couldn't quite name.
"So," he said, taking a sip of his own coffee, "you want to talk about what you were actually working on during his lecture?"
Athelia's hand tightened on her laptop. "I was taking notes."
"You were drawing a wolf." His voice wasn't accusatory. Just... observant. "I saw it when Mendez made you close your laptop. It was incredible."
"How did you—" She stopped. He'd been two rows ahead. There was no way he could have seen her screen.
Severen smiled slightly. "I pay attention to things most people miss. It's a habit."
They sat in silence for a moment, and Athelia found herself studying him. There was something about the way he held himself, the way he'd answered that jurisdiction question, that felt... off. Not wrong. Just different. Like he existed slightly outside the normal flow of the world.
"That answer you gave in class," she said finally. "About entities existing before boundaries were created. That wasn't in the casebook."
"No," he agreed. "But it's true. Sometimes the most important principles aren't written down. They're just... understood. By those old enough to remember."
"Old enough to remember constitutional law being drafted?" The words came out sharper than she intended.
He laughed—genuinely amused. "Something like that. Let's just say I think about systems differently than most people."
"Teach me."
The words surprised them both. But looking at him—at the way he seemed to understand things she was only beginning to glimpse—Athelia felt certain he could help her make sense of what was happening.
"I run a study group," Severen said after a moment. "Few of us from Mendez's class. We meet tomorrow night if you want to join."
"I'll be there."
He stood, finishing his coffee. "Good. And Athelia?" He met her eyes, and for just a second, she could have sworn they flashed a different color. Sapphire instead of dark brown. "Whatever you're experiencing—the drawings, the sense that something's changing—you're not imagining it. Trust that."
He walked away before she could respond, leaving her alone in the courtyard with a cooling cup of coffee and more questions than answers.
"What are you?" she whispered to the screen.
Her phone buzzed.
Unknown number: Study group tonight. 7 PM. Room 204. -N
Athelia stared at it. How did he get her number?
Another buzz: Class roster. I'm a TA. And yes, before you ask, you should come.
She should delete this. Block the number. But instead she typed: Why?
Because Mendez's hypotheticals are garbage and someone needs to teach you how jurisdictional analysis actually works.
Despite everything, Athelia almost smiled.
Fine. 7 PM.
Room 204 had six students when Athelia arrived at 6:58. She recognized a couple from Mendez's class. The rest were unfamiliar faces, all with the same exhausted law student energy—too much reading, too little sleep, surviving on caffeine and spite.
Severen sat at the head of the seminar table, laptop open, two coffee cups beside him. He looked up when she entered.
"Athelia. Good." He gestured to the empty chair on his right. "Saved you a seat."
One of the other students—a guy with messy brown hair and a Yale undergrad hoodie—snorted. "Didn't know this was assigned seating."
"It's not," Severen said mildly. "But she's going to want to see the materials, and the screen visibility is better from this side."
Athelia crossed to the chair, hyperaware of the other students watching. She sat. Severen pushed one of the coffees toward her.
"Milk, no sugar, right?"
She blinked. "How did you—"
"Saw you at the coffee cart yesterday." He turned back to his laptop. "Alright. Everyone here? Good. Let's talk about something Mendez keeps glossing over because it makes him uncomfortable."
"Sovereign immunity?" someone asked.
"Competing territorial claims." Severen pulled up a slide. "Specifically—what happens when you have two legal systems both asserting authority over the same territory. Both with historical foundations. Both with enforcement mechanisms. How do you determine which one has superior claim?"
Yale Hoodie leaned back. "Whoever has actual power to enforce. This isn't theoretical."
"Isn't it?" Severen's voice stayed level. "Consider Johnson v. M'Intosh, 1823. The Supreme Court had to resolve competing claims of land ownership—one based on purchase from Native American tribes, one based on grant from the United States government. Both parties had documentation. Both had what they considered legitimate authority to transfer the land."
A girl across the table—short dark hair, sharp eyes—jumped in. "Yeah, and the Court ruled that the federal government's claim was superior because of the Doctrine of Discovery. Conquest gives title."
"Does it?" Severen asked. "Or does the Court just say it does? Because the indigenous nations in question had been governing that territory for centuries before European contact. They had legal systems, territorial boundaries, enforcement mechanisms. The United States just... decided those didn't count."
"Because might makes right," Yale Hoodie said. "That's how sovereignty works. You can have all the historical claims you want, but if you can't enforce them, they're meaningless."
Severen smiled slightly. "So if an older sovereign loses the ability to enforce their claim—let's say through external suppression or internal collapse—they permanently lose legitimacy? Even if the conditions that prevented enforcement are later removed?"
"That's not how real property works," the dark-haired girl said. "Adverse possession requires continuous, open, hostile use. If the true owner is prevented from enforcing their rights through no fault of their own—like if they're literally barred from accessing the property—the statute of limitations is tolled."
"Exactly." Severen leaned forward. "So apply that logic to territorial sovereignty. An established legal system with documented territorial claims is forcibly prevented from exercising authority. Not because they abandoned their claim, but because external force suppressed their ability to enforce it. Does that suppression create legitimacy for the newer system, or does the original claim persist?"
Athelia's palm tingled. She pressed it flat against the table.
"This is too abstract," someone said. "Give us a real hypothetical."
"Fine." Severen's eyes flicked to Athelia for just a second before returning to the group. "Kingdom A has governed a specific territory for a thousand years. Documented succession, legal frameworks, the whole structure. Then something happens—let's say a catastrophic event, maybe a curse, maybe just political collapse—that prevents them from exercising authority. During that period, Kingdom B establishes governance over the same territory. Three hundred years pass. Then the original conditions blocking Kingdom A's authority are resolved. Who has the superior claim?"
"Kingdom B," Yale Hoodie said immediately. "Three hundred years is plenty for adverse possession. Claim's abandoned."
"The claim wasn't abandoned," Athelia heard herself say. Everyone looked at her. She swallowed. "In your hypothetical, Kingdom A didn't choose to stop governing. They were prevented by external circumstances. That's not abandonment, that's... suppression."
Severen's expression didn't change, but something in his eyes warmed. "Correct. So does the newer sovereign have legitimate authority, or are they just a squatter with really good documentation?"
"This is insane," the dark-haired girl said. "You're asking us to evaluate competing claims from kingdoms that don't exist."
"Do they not?" Severen pulled up another slide. "Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 1831. Chief Justice Marshall acknowledged that the Cherokee Nation was a distinct political entity with territorial sovereignty that predated the United States. The Court called them a 'domestic dependent nation'—which is a legal fiction designed to avoid the uncomfortable truth that we're occupying territory that someone else has a legitimate claim to."
"Had," Yale Hoodie corrected. "Past tense. The Cherokee were forced out. That claim doesn't exist anymore."
"Because force eliminates legitimacy?" Severen's voice stayed calm. "So if I steal your car and keep it for twenty years, I own it? Or does your claim to the car persist regardless of my possession?"
"That's different. Cars have titles."
"So do kingdoms. They're called charters. Treaties. Succession documents." He paused. "The question isn't whether the claim is convenient for the current possessor. The question is whether the claim is legitimate under the legal framework that existed when it was created."
Athelia's head was spinning. Why did this feel so specific? Why did every hypothetical make her palm tingle worse?
"Okay, fine," the dark-haired girl said. "Let's say Kingdom A has a legitimate historical claim. How do they enforce it after three hundred years? The people living under Kingdom B don't recognize Kingdom A's authority. You can't just show up with old documents and expect obedience."
"Can't you?" Severen asked. "What if Kingdom A's legal framework included specific mechanisms for reclaiming authority? What if there was always a contingency plan for exactly this scenario—succession through a bloodline heir, recognition triggered by specific conditions, a built-in process for restoration?"
"That's not how modern sovereignty works," someone argued.
"No. It's how historical sovereignty works. And if we're asking which claim is superior, we have to evaluate both under their own frameworks, not just impose modern assumptions." He pulled up another slide—a dense block of text. "Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848. Mexican citizens living in ceded territories could choose to remain Mexican citizens or become American. Their property rights, established under Mexican law, were supposed to be preserved under American law. Did that happen?"
"Mostly no," Athelia said quietly. She'd studied this. "The U.S. legal system didn't recognize many of the Mexican land grants because they didn't fit American property law frameworks."
"Right. So whose legal system should have controlled? The older one that created the rights, or the newer one that refused to recognize them?"
The room went quiet.
Finally, Yale Hoodie said: "This is all theoretical bullshit. There are no hidden kingdoms waiting to reclaim lost territory. Sovereignty is what we decide it is right now, not what it was three hundred years ago."
Severen's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Is it? Because indigenous nations are still here. Still making treaty-based legal claims. Still asserting sovereignty that predates colonial occupation. And courts still have to address those claims, whether it's convenient or not."
He closed his laptop.
"That's where we'll pick up next week. Read Worcester v. Georgia and United States v. Kagama. Think about what happens when legal systems collide and only one gets to decide which framework controls the analysis."
Students started packing up, muttering about the reading load. Yale Hoodie was arguing with the dark-haired girl about adverse possession as they left.
Athelia stayed in her seat, coffee untouched, palm pressed flat against the table to stop the tingling.
When the room emptied, Severen looked at her.
"You okay?"
"Why did you keep looking at me during those hypotheticals?"
"Did I?"
"You know you did."
He was quiet for a moment. Then: "Because you were the only one listening like it mattered."
"It doesn't matter. It's theoretical."
"Is it?" His voice was gentle. "The dream you had. The one you're trying to convince yourself was just stress and exhaustion. What if it wasn't?"
Athelia's breath caught. "How did you—"
"Your palm. You keep pressing it against things. Like you're testing whether they're real." He tilted his head slightly. "What did you touch, Athelia?"
"Nothing. It was a dream."
"Was it?"
"It had to be. Because the alternative is..." She stopped. Couldn't finish.
"That old boundaries still exist," Severen said quietly. "That territorial claims don't disappear just because we stopped teaching about them. That you touched something real and now you can't un-know it."
Athelia stood abruptly. "I need to go."
"Tomorrow night. Same time. If you want answers."
"I don't want answers. I want to not be losing my mind."
"You're not," he said. "I promise. You're just seeing something most people miss."
She grabbed her bag and left without responding.
Outside, the October air bit cold against her face. Students crossed the quad, normal and solid and living in a world that made sense.
Athelia pulled out her phone. Typed into the search bar: Morrison Woods history
Then deleted it.
Then typed it again.
Her palm tingled.
"It was a dream," she whispered.
But her hand was already pulling up results—old newspaper articles, historical accounts, stories about people getting lost in woods that were only twenty acres but somehow felt endless.
She clicked the first link.
And started reading.