The first time Kael heard it, he thought it was a trick of the wind.
A whisper. Soft. Cracked like old leather and barely audible, it floated through the trees as dawn's breath rolled across the valley. A sound too thin to be noticed, too easy to dismiss. A rustle. A breeze. A bird.
But Kael knew better.
You don't fight gods, die, and live again without learning to hear what others ignore.
So he listened.
He was four now.
And with each passing month, he moved a little more freely, spoke a little more clearly. The infant chains were loosening. Not fully broken, but stretched enough to grant freedom of movement, freedom of thought. It was a relief.
Mornings were his own. His parents didn't mind so long as he stayed near. He'd sit beneath the old birch near the stream, hidden from the house but close enough to hear Lira call when breakfast was ready. They thought he was just a quiet boy who liked rocks and birds.
But Kael was never playing.
Not really.
He sat still, legs folded, back straight, breathing deep. Not to meditate in the spiritual sense, but to hone a rhythm of internal silence. A soldier's stillness. A warrior's readiness. There was always more to learn.
This world whispered if you were willing to be quiet.
And today, it whispered something new.
A presence.
It wasn't mana. Not entirely. It wasn't animal, either. It had a rhythm. Familiar. Not the heartbeat of a deer or the slither of a fox. It pulsed like memory. Like him.
Not close. But not far.
Someone else.
Someone like him.
Kael waited three days.
He spent them silently pacing the edges of the forest, feeling the pull. It wasn't a voice, not exactly. Just a tug. A shared tether. Like two ends of a thread drawn taut across the hills.
Each night, it grew clearer.
The whisper became a hum. Not words, but intent. Something was reaching. Searching.
By the fourth morning, he knew it wasn't going to stop.
He told his mother he wanted to play in the woods.
Lira hesitated. Her brow furrowed the way it always did when he asked for more freedom than a four-year-old should have.
But Dren only laughed. "He's like me. I used to disappear for hours at his age. He'll be fine."
Kael offered a smile.
He was already gone before the last dish was cleared from the table.
The forest here was ancient. It didn't tower like the high trees of his past life, but it felt old. Roots tangled like veins beneath mossy soil. Bark cracked like battle-worn shields. The sun broke through in patches, little golden mosaics playing on the path ahead.
Kael moved quietly.
Not sneaking. Listening.
The pull grew stronger. It guided him like a magnet, leading up a small ridge to a clearing wrapped in pine. And there, beneath the crooked skeleton of a storm-warped tree, he saw her.
A girl.
Slightly older. Six, maybe. Pale skin, dirty knees, a tunic too long for her frame. Her hair fell past her shoulders like woven silver thread. Not white. Not blonde. Silver.
She sat cross-legged in the dirt, palms resting on a smooth black stone that shimmered faintly with heat.
Kael stopped.
The air around her was wrong. Not threatening. Not cursed. Just... ancient. Like something echoing from a time that hadn't come yet.
And then she opened her eyes.
Not sleepily. Not lazily. Like a switch had been flipped.
Sharp gray eyes locked onto him.
They stared.
He didn't speak.
She didn't blink.
Finally, she said, flat and certain:
"You're not from here."
Kael felt the hair rise on his arms.
"Neither are you."
She tilted her head.
"I saw you. In a dream."
His breath hitched.
"What kind of dream?"
She paused, studying him. "A sword fell from the stars. It landed in the heart of a god. Then it burned. The sword, not the god."
Kael stood frozen. That wasn't a dream. That was memory.
His memory.
She saw his past.
Or a version of it.
They spoke little more.
Her name was Elira. She lived a few hills north, in a cottage surrounded by sheep. She liked quiet places and "dreamed with her eyes open." She didn't say the word mana, but Kael felt it in her tone.
They sat beside each other under the crooked pine.
No games. No laughter. Just silence.
And for the first time since he'd opened his eyes in this life, Kael didn't feel like a stranger.
When he returned home, his walk was slower.
Measured.
Dren ruffled his hair. Lira kissed his forehead and told him supper was almost ready. He nodded at both, wordless.
But his mind was racing.
Elira had seen him.
She had felt him.
Was she like him? Reborn? Awakened? Or something new? Something old?
A seer?
A shard?
A piece of the broken god?
Kael didn't know.
But he knew this: their meeting was not random.
The universe was stirring. The old game was reawakening. And he had just found his first player.
That night, Kael didn't sleep.
He sat by the cottage window, forehead pressed to the cold glass, watching the stars inch across the velvet sky.
He didn't need dreams tonight.
The wind whispered again.
Not loneliness.
Not silence.
But presence.
Others were out there.
Touched.
Changed.
Some would be kind.
Some would be cruel.
And Elira?
He didn't know yet.
But he would be ready for both.