The river did something rivers are not famous for doing: it forgot its way. Not entirely, not with the drama that makes ballads, but subtly, like an old man telling a story and skipping a sentence no one notices until the ending feels thinner. The bend they had argued into existence still cupped the water. Boats still slid past the temple where the bell knew the names of children. But in the mornings, when women came to fill jars and men to test weather with their wrists, the surface lay low, as if someone had shared a rumor of drought with the river and it had believed it.