The temple door groaned shut behind him, sealing Caelan in silence.
He didn't sleep.
Not truly. The hours passed in a haze of drifting thoughts and half-dreams, memories pulling him under like a riptide.
He saw her again.
His mother.
Not at the gallows, but in their home. Laughing. Braiding his hair. Singing while stirring a pot over a flame. Her voice was soft, honeyed with a sadness she tried to hide.
"You have your father's stubbornness," she would say, pressing her hand to his cheek. "But not his cruelty. Remember that."
He reached for her.
And woke to cold stone.
***************************************************
Morning light broke through the temple's shattered ceiling in thin, fractured beams. Dust swirled in the air, gilded gold by the sun. Caelan stood slowly, body stiff from the cold.
The old man was gone.
But something was left in his place.
A blade.
It lay wrapped in linen on the altar—old, unpolished, but the edge gleamed with promise. Caelan unwrapped it slowly. The hilt was black iron, bound with red leather. No ornament. No sigil. Just steel.
He didn't know why, but his hand fit around it like it belonged.
You'll need strength.
The man's voice echoed in his head.
Caelan clenched his jaw and stepped into the light.
***************************************************
Lowtown had changed.
Not to the eye—the streets were still broken, the gutters still filled with slush and filth. But something in the air had shifted. Tighter. Tenser.
He passed a group of guards harassing a baker, their laughter sharp with cruelty. The baker met Caelan's eyes over their shoulders.
And Caelan did nothing.
Not yet.
He kept walking.
People moved aside. Not out of respect. But out of instinct.
There was something different in his eyes now. A shadow.
A boy like him shouldn't have survived the gallows. Shouldn't have walked away from grief.
But Caelan had.
And the world could feel it.
*************************************************
He returned to the alley where it happened. Where they'd dragged her. Where the crowd had watched.
He stood there a long time, snow crunching beneath his boots.
Then he whispered:
"I won't let this be the end of your story."
From deep inside, a pulse answered.
Not emotion.
Power.
He closed his eyes.
‹ Eclipsed Veil ›
Strength — 2
Willpower — 5
Perception — 6
Intelligence — 3
Charm — 2
Thread Control — 1
Resonance — 2
Resilience — 3
Compatibility: Ashweave — Emerging
Soul Fracture Detected: Type I — [Loss of Anchor]
Veil may be accessed at will.
He let it fade.
The snow began to twist again, curling upward around his feet in a slow spiral.
Ash.
It coiled from his fingertips like smoke.
The threads obeyed him now. Not fully. Not yet. But they responded.
He could feel their pull—in the ground, in the air, in the blood pulsing through his skin.
Ashweave.
Born from loss. Forged through fire.
And with it, a glimpse—
Of what he could become.
A voice broke the stillness.
"Training alone is foolish."
He turned.
The old man stood in the alley's mouth, arms crossed, a crooked smirk on his scarred face.
"You'll burn yourself from the inside out without a tether."
Caelan stared, wary. "Why come back?"
The man stepped forward, cloak trailing behind like shadow. "Because the weave stirred again. I felt it. Like someone plucking a harp with a sword."
He paused. "You need to learn control. Or the next time it surges, you might kill someone you care about."
"I don't care about anyone," Caelan said flatly.
The man laughed. "Good. That means you have nothing to lose."
The old man didn't offer a name.
Didn't explain how he knew what he knew.
But he led Caelan deeper into Lowtown—through forgotten tunnels and broken shrines, into the underbelly of the city.
Where secrets festered.
Where the past was buried.
Where Caelan would begin.
End of Chapter 3