I vanished.
Without a sound. Without hesitation. Like a breath withdrawn from the world.
My body faded into the shadows with absolute ease, carried by my concealment ability, until it became nothing. No more footsteps. No more breath. No more form. There was only silence, and in that silence… me.
Invisible.
And in that perfect void, I returned.
In a heartbeat, I reappeared behind her.
Precise. Calculated. Sharp.
The ground reacted instantly.
A barely perceptible tremor preceded the explosion. In a narrow radius around Orphéa, fire erupted — brutal, rippling, surging in unpredictable waves, like a wounded beast. A living, instinctive shield, triggered more by reflex than by will. An elemental defense, tight, almost intimate, rising from the stone itself.
I leapt back, spinning mid-air to avoid the storm's heart. My coat was grazed, flames licking the fabric with a sharp hiss, too close to ignore.
A breath of intuition passed through me.
— A fire mage…
