Chapter 48 - Try
Athena didn't speak for several seconds after Silas's words.
You do not smell human to them.
They echoed in her mind, settling deeper than anything else he had told her so far.
She looked at him, something new forming in her expression.
"Can I try?" she asked.
Silas tilted his head slightly. "Try what?"
"To feel it," she said. "What you keep saying I'm not noticing."
He studied her for a moment, then nodded.
"Come."
They walked in silence back toward the forest edge, the same place they had stood the night before. The air felt different in the afternoon light - warmer, brighter - but the quiet hum of life was still there.
Silas stopped a few feet from the trees.
"Close your eyes," he said.
Athena obeyed.
She inhaled slowly.
At first, she heard nothing but the faint rush of wind through the leaves.
Then...
A branch snapped somewhere far off.
Birds shifting from tree to tree.
Something small moving through brush.
Her brow furrowed.
She focused harder.
There was a faint rustling to her left.
Water trickling somewhere ahead.
Her breathing slowed.
The world felt... layered.
Detailed.
Alive.
She swallowed.
"I can hear things I shouldn't be able to hear," she whispered.
Silas watched her carefully.
"Do not try to force it. Just listen."
Athena inhaled again.
This time she noticed something else.
Scents.
Earth.
Pine.
Damp leaves.
But beneath that...
Something sharper.
Something richer she couldn't name.
Her eyes opened slowly.
Her heart was pounding.
"This isn't normal," she said.
Silas shook his head once.
"No. It isn't."
Athena looked at the trees like they were no longer just trees.
Like they were part of something she was only just beginning to recognize.
She swallowed hard.
"I can feel it," she whispered.