CHAPTER 150 — MISALIGNMENT
Leylin's eyes opened, and awareness returned to him quietly, settling a fraction later than it should have, as though he had already awakened somewhere ahead of himself and was only just catching up.
Séraphine was still close, her hands resting against him, though her expression had already shifted into something more focused as she studied his face with careful attention.
"Leylin," she said, her voice steady. "Can you hear me?"
"I can."
His response came clean, without strain, and for a moment nothing about him seemed out of place.
He shifted to stand, pushing himself up in one smooth motion, but as he moved, something slipped for an instant, his form blurring faintly between positions before settling back into place as if nothing had happened.
Leylin didn't react.
He rose fully, steady and composed, while Séraphine remained exactly where she was, her eyes narrowing slightly as she watched him.
"Don't move," she said.
Leylin paused, glancing at her with a slight frown.
"I just stood up."
Her gaze didn't waver.
"No."
He was about to question her when the thought came to him.
Step forward.
He didn't act on it.
But something did.
The space beside Séraphine shifted without warning, and in the next instant, Leylin was no longer where he had been.
He stood a few meters to her left.
Nothing connected the two positions.
No motion.
No transition.
He was simply there.
Leylin froze, the words catching halfway as he looked back to where he had been standing, then down at himself as if expecting to find an explanation written into his own form.
"What just—"
Séraphine turned slowly to face him, her expression no longer measured.
"What did you do?"
"I didn't move," he said, the answer coming instinctively before he stopped, realizing how hollow it sounded.
"You did," she replied.
Leylin's focus sharpened as he tried to retrace it, replaying the moment in his mind.
"I only thought about it," he said more quietly. "I didn't take the step."
"And yet you're here."
The words settled between them, leaving a silence that felt heavier than it should have.
Leylin inhaled slowly, testing his balance, his awareness, searching for any sign of what had just happened, but there was nothing, no strain, no surge, no trace of effort, only the memory of displacement.
"What is happening to me?" he asked.
Séraphine didn't answer immediately, her attention moving between him and the space he had crossed as though expecting it to happen again.
Leylin followed her gaze for a moment before looking down at his own hand, lifting it carefully as if the motion itself might trigger something, but when nothing happened, he lowered it again, his jaw tightening slightly as the absence of a response became its own answer.
"I thought it would happen again," he said.
"You're trying to force it," Séraphine replied.
He didn't deny it.
He shifted his weight and stepped back, the motion steady and ordinary this time, and when he moved again, nothing followed, no distortion, no displacement, just the simple action completing itself without resistance.
His gaze returned to the space he had crossed earlier, measuring the distance again, no longer uncertain, but deliberate.
"It happened when I didn't try," he said.
"Then stop trying."
Leylin's expression shifted, something sharper settling behind his eyes as the thought took hold.
He looked ahead, not at her this time, but at the space itself, as though it had become something he could reach, something that might answer if approached the right way.
And instead of moving, he let the thought form again.