Rowan did not withdraw.
He adjusted.
There was a difference, and it mattered more now than it ever had before.
Where others would have stepped back to reassess, he instead altered the way he observed, refining his attention, narrowing his focus, allowing the interaction he had just experienced to settle into something he could use rather than something he tried to repeat.
The forest around him had not changed in any visible way. The convergence still threaded through the land behind him, steady and intact, its presence no less precise than it had been at any point since its reconstruction.
But Rowan no longer measured anything against it.
Not fully.
That had been the mistake he had corrected the moment the child refused him.
He let out a slow breath and lowered himself slightly, re
