The wind over the Hollow carried a peculiar stillness that night—one that didn't belong to peace, but to pause. The kind of pause before something shifts.
Kael sat by the garden wall, his hands still faintly stained with crushed herbs. He'd just finished preparing a small dose of pain-muting salve for Riven—nothing too generous. Just enough to keep the boy coming back.
Let him return. Let him owe. Kael had reasoned it out.
He wasn't doing it out of kindness. Not entirely. It was positioning—slow, deliberate, long-term. One day, someone like Riven could be more than just another disciple. He could be a shield. Or a sword.
And perhaps, Kael thought quietly, he could learn something in return. Riven practiced martial arts. He fought. Kael, meanwhile, had spent the past four years immersed in medicine and the nameless incantation. Elric never stopped him from studying other disciplines—so long as they didn't interfere with his cultivation. Still, martial arts remained a gap Kael hadn't bridged. Not yet.
But influence could make space where knowledge alone could not.
The moonlight poured over the tiles, soft and silver. Normally Kael would be inside by now—reading, or meditating. But tonight, he lingered. A half-baked thought spun through his mind, then faded. No clarity came.
Instead, memories drifted in, uninvited.
Of home.
Of a family he hadn't seen in years.
He'd sent coin. They'd sent letters. The polite kind. Cordial. Distant.
Gratitude that sounded more like obligation.
He wasn't sure when it had changed. Maybe after the first year. Maybe it was him who had changed.
Kael leaned back in his chair and looked up. The stars shimmered faintly overhead. Somewhere beyond those stars, his family continued their lives. He was still their son, their brother.
Wasn't he?
His fingers moved unconsciously to his chest, brushing against the pendant hidden beneath his robe. A small, timeworn leather pouch. Inside it, a bottle. He hadn't looked at it in years.
His hand paused there.
Then pressed a little harder.
A sharp unease flared through him, unexpected and involuntary. With a sudden motion, Kael tore the pendant from his neck and tossed it several paces away, where it landed in the grass with a muted thud.
But the unease remained.
He sat still for a long moment, breathing deep, trying to center himself. Something was off. Not in the world around him—but somewhere deeper. A quiet agitation, like a thought just out of reach, a splinter in the back of his mind.
He didn't feel tired. But his heart beat a little too fast. His breath hitched, shallow and uneven.
He sat up straighter.
There was no burst of energy. No pain. But a strange pressure built behind his eyes—emotional, not physical. Like guilt with no cause. Like grief with no name.
Kael frowned.
It wasn't the body.
It was the mind.
The heart.
The self.
He closed his eyes.
Calm.
Focus.
But something resisted. Thoughts he hadn't invited came crowding in—his mother's last letter, the way his brother's words sounded rehearsed, the way none of them asked when he'd return.
He drew a slow breath. He'd trained for years. The nameless incantation had never brought peace, but it had brought stillness. Now, even that was slipping away.
This—this wasn't cultivation.
This was something else.
He began pacing the edge of the courtyard. The scent of ironwood and ash blossoms filled the air. But it didn't settle him. The restlessness inside kept building. His skin prickled. His thoughts twisted in unfamiliar patterns.
He paused near the window and caught sight of his reflection. He looked… distant. Not like the boy who arrived here four years ago.
What had changed?