Third Contender

This time, Nephis was the first to notice the anomaly. Sunny and she were resting after an exhausting spar — he was meditating with his eyes closed, while she was leaning her back on him, still catching her breath.

He sensed a sudden tensing of her muscles, and then the warm pressure was gone. Opening his eyes, Sunny glanced at Nephis and noticed that she was looking intently into the distance, where the endlessly flowing waters of the Great River were sparkling under the light of the seven suns.

The Azure Serpent was nowhere in sight, and the island was not trembling, which meant that it was circling the stone shell of the Black Turtle. The monstrous butterfly was a small black dot in the sky. What had caught her attention, then?

"What is it?"

Nephis lingered for a few moments, then pointed at a distant patch of water downstream of them.

"There. Can you see it?"