The wind had changed.
Kahel felt it before he opened his eyes — a stillness too complete, as if the world were holding its breath. The last trails of qi from his cultivation lingered in his limbs like cooling embers. He exhaled slowly and rose from the grass.
The stone pillar before him no longer shimmered, but he could still sense something faint humming beneath its surface. Like an echo now sealed away. As if it had shown him what it wanted, then turned its gaze elsewhere.
His legs trembled as he stood. Hours had passed. His stomach clawed at itself in protest, but he ignored it. Hunger was nothing new. The ache of it was like an old friend — always nearby, always quiet.
He turned to leave the hilltop.
But stopped.
There was something else.
A presence.
His eyes scanned the mist-draped slope below. The path back to Darnell twisted through sparse trees, wet grass, and half-buried stones. Nothing moved. No voices. No footprints. Just silence.
But he knew he wasn't alone.
Kahel lowered his hand to the wooden scroll case at his belt — his only real possession. He didn't expect it to protect him, but it reminded him of his mother. That was enough to give him courage.
Still… he kept walking. Slowly. Listening.
A crow cried somewhere above, then silence again.
Halfway down the hill, he heard the whisper of cloth brushing against wet leaves. He spun around — too slow. Nothing there. Just fog and rain-kissed trees.
His heart pounded. But then… something strange.
He didn't feel afraid.
Watched, yes. But not threatened.
Whoever — whatever — was out there, they weren't hunting. Not yet.
He kept walking, but his senses stayed sharp.
By the time he reached the village edge, the mist had thickened, turning Darnell into a dream of rotting wood and flickering lamps. The few villagers still awake didn't look his way. They rarely did. He was a reminder of things they feared.
He returned to the broken hut, ducked beneath the collapsed frame, and sat beside the cold ashes of the fire pit. With practiced hands, he pulled out a bundle of dried roots from under a loose floorboard and began chewing slowly.
They were bitter. But they filled the edge of the void in his stomach.
Just as he leaned back to rest, a low voice echoed in his mind — not heard, but felt. Like wind brushing the inside of his thoughts.
"You breathe like a beast trying to be a man."
Kahel shot up. His eyes darted around the ruins. No one. Nothing.
Then, from the doorway, a figure emerged.
A woman.
Old, hunched, cloaked in layers of woven reed and dark cloth that smelled faintly of smoke and river water. Her face was veiled, her voice low and rough like worn stone.
He stood slowly, instinctively tense.
"Who are you?" he asked.
She ignored the question and stepped inside, her movements soundless. She looked at the scroll beside him, then at his eyes. "You touched flame. It did not kill you. Curious."
Kahel said nothing.
She leaned on a gnarled cane and walked a slow circle around him, studying the air, not just the boy. "You're early. Or the world is late. Hard to say."
"What do you want?" he asked, voice firmer now.
Her reply was simple. "To see."
Then, with one smooth motion, she struck him in the chest with the end of her cane.
The blow was light — but his breath vanished. Not from pain, but from pressure. His knees buckled. The world turned sideways. His vision blurred.
She muttered something in a language he didn't know, then stepped back.
The pressure vanished.
Kahel gasped and fell to one knee, eyes wide.
The woman nodded.
"You live. Good." She turned to leave.
"Wait!" he called, stumbling forward. "What did you do to me?"
She paused at the doorway. "Tested your soul flame. You're not ready. But you will be."
He blinked. "Soul flame?"
"You'll understand," she said, stepping into the mist. "If you survive."
And then she was gone.
Kahel stood in the ruined doorway, watching the fog swallow her shape. A strange chill ran down his spine — not of fear, but of something shifting. The air itself felt... expectant.
As the sky darkened into full night, he returned to his place beside the fire pit.
He stared at the scroll in his lap. The symbols no longer shimmered.
But something else had begun.
Far away, at the edge of the forest, another figure crouched beneath the shadow of a leaning tree. Cloaked in rough traveler's cloth, face hidden beneath a hood, the man watched the hut through eyes rimmed with golden light.
He said nothing. Made no move to reveal himself.
But in his hand, he held a sigil — a broken crest, shaped like a storm-swallowed crown.
He clenched it once, then tucked it away.
"Grow strong, little ember," he murmured. "They will come for you soon."
And then he vanished into the trees, as silent as a thought.