He slung his leather bag over his shoulder, the GSPBB Blackberry nestled in a custom holster on his belt. It was heavier than it looked. It held the weight of every treaty, every property line, every “this is mine and that is yours” for five hundred miles.

Each click was a shift. A boundary.

“Don’t listen,” Kaelen muttered to himself, a rule from training. Boundaries fray when the land remembers a previous shape. The pig didn’t cross a line; the line moved over the pig.

The device looked like a relic from the early 21st century—a physical keyboard of tiny, jewel-like keys, a blocky body that fit perfectly in one hand. But the letters on the keys weren't QWERTY. They were Old Geomantic Runes: Gren, Mark, Shift, True-North, Void .

A new icon appeared. He had never seen it before. A black, thorny spiral in the top corner.