The morning after the incident felt like ash. Not fire, not smoke—just the silent remains of something burned. Kael sat at the edge of the creek that curled behind the village, the water cold, its stream whispering like a secret.
He stared into the water. Not at his reflection, but through it—searching.
What are we, really?
His fingers curled around the blade of grass between his thumb and forefinger. The village taught them that cruelty was unnatural, that children were born pure. But what if that wasn't true? What if it was the world that was broken—and cruelty was simply a rational response?
They tortured him because he had silver eyes. Because he was different. They said nothing when others went missing. And they'll say nothing now. They call it balance. But whose balance?
He thought of Mera. Her care was real, but it was wrapped in fear. Not fear of him, but fear of what disruption might bring. She clung to peace—even if that peace meant silence while horrors grew in the dark.
Kael pulled the long strand of grass until it snapped.
He had devoured something no one could comprehend. A boy died in his arms, and that death had changed something inside him. Not just power—but awareness. A hunger not for flesh, but for truth.
And yet, truth was the most forbidden thing in this world.
---
Village Square — Later That Day
A crowd had formed by midday. Not for a fight, but for curiosity.
The merchant had returned.
He wore a patchwork coat of stitched-together leathers and scales, a broad-brimmed hat shadowing a grin filled with yellow teeth. His cart was cluttered with strange wares—crystals that pulsed faintly, coins stamped with symbols no one could read, and tiny glass flasks with swirling liquid that changed color when you blinked.
Children gathered quickly. Adults lingered at the edge, skeptical but watchful.
Kael watched from under the shade of a tree, eyes narrowed.
The merchant's eyes met his for a moment—too long. The man smiled wider, then turned back to his sales.
"Trinkets for the forgotten!" the man shouted. "Charms for the unwanted! You—yes, you! You look like someone who needs to vanish!"
That earned nervous laughter.
Kael moved forward, slow, calculating.
"What do you call that?" he asked, pointing to a glimmering black shard wrapped in thin silver thread.
The merchant's eyes twinkled. "Ah. This one's from the ruins of Narthuun. Said to ward off whispers of death. Or attract them, depending on who you ask."
Kael didn't smile. "And which do you believe?"
The merchant leaned in, voice low. "Depends on what you've done."
For a moment, Kael felt the world pause. Did the man know? Was he guessing? Or was it something else entirely?
He walked away without a word.
---
Whispers in the Dust
By dusk, the rumors had begun.
Someone said a group of hunters had found burned soil and bloodless bones beyond the western tree line. Another claimed they saw Kael near the old trail where carts once passed before the trade routes dried up.
A child swore he'd seen Kael dragging something in the dark.
No one confronted him—not yet. But the glances sharpened. Mera's voice had more edge when she called him to eat. Even the elder, usually too old to care, seemed to follow him with his eyes longer than needed.
Kael sat by the fire that night, alone.
He poked the embers.
I didn't kill the boy. I gave him peace.
The distinction felt thin. He didn't even know the boy's name. Only the pain in his silver eyes. Eyes that had begged for an end, not a miracle.
Maybe the world didn't deserve miracles.
---
That night, Kael couldn't sleep.
His mind replayed the merchant's words. Depends on what you've done.
What had he done?
Not just devour. That was only the surface.
He had stared into another being's suffering—deep, raw, helpless suffering—and instead of turning away, he'd taken it in. And in doing so, he'd seen too clearly what others refused to look at.
The boy had been a mirror. A warning. A revelation.
This world doesn't save the broken. It sells them. Disposes of them. Replaces them.
Kael rose before dawn. The village slept in quiet ignorance—fires burned low, and the dirt paths between huts were fogged with mist.
He walked out to the old boundary trail. The same one that once carried supplies to far regions before the routes collapsed.
But this time, he noticed something odd.
The trail had two sets of overlapping impressions—one old, faded by time. The other fresh. Not boot prints. Wheels. But narrow. And heavy.
Carts.
Kael crouched. He reached into the soil. Still moist. Someone had passed here recently.
He found something half-buried beside the road: a piece of torn cloth. Red with a golden hem. No one in the village wore such things.
And then… something else.
Tiny fingerprints.
Children.
---
Questions Without Mercy
Later that morning, when Kael returned to the square, the stares were colder.
Two men whispered behind barrels. A group of women hushed as he passed. Even the younger children gave him space they hadn't before.
He found Mera outside the well, fetching water.
She turned, startled. "Kael. You've been out."
"I have," he said simply.
She hesitated. "There are… things people are saying."
"I know."
Her eyes wavered. "Is it true?"
Kael tilted his head. "What is?"
"That you've… changed. That you were near the woods. That maybe you've… done something."
He didn't flinch. "Would it matter if I had?"
Mera's lips parted. Her voice cracked. "It would matter to me."
Kael stepped closer, his gaze sharp but not cruel. "Then tell me—if someone was suffering, begging for freedom, would you grant it if the cost was… unnatural?"
Her silence stretched.
"I don't know," she whispered.
"I do."
He walked past her.
---
A Mind Divided
Kael returned to the creek where he had sat before.
But now, he stared not at the water—but at his own hands.
What defines a monster? he asked himself. Is it the act? Or the intent?
If he'd killed for pleasure, for power—perhaps the title would fit. But what if he did it to prevent more suffering?
Would the world still call it evil?
They would. Because comfort fears disruption. Even righteous disruption.
If morality is shaped by convenience, then what is it worth?
He thought of the boy's eyes again. Then of the trails. The tiny handprint in the soil.
Another caravan had passed. Children, again.
He gritted his teeth. The realization was a blade drawn quietly beneath his ribs.
They're still out there. Being taken.
And no one in this village would dare act. They would pray. They would whisper. But they wouldn't stop it.
He would.
---
The Spark of Resolve
That evening, Kael took a different path home—looping north through the old field. That's when he saw them.
Not people—signs.
Marks in the grass. A broken twig. A carved symbol on the bark of a tree.
It looked like a route marker. Crude, quick—scratched in haste, likely to communicate without language.
A signal.
He memorized it.
His heart slowed. Not with fear—but with something colder. Sharper.
They're close.
He returned to the village, silent as shadow.
He didn't sleep that night. Instead, he sharpened thought into decision. Not vengeance—intention.
If no one else will name the wrong, then I will.
He packed supplies before dawn. Dried roots. A blade he stole from the blacksmith's hut. Nothing fancy—just iron.
The katana forged from stolen abilities was not yet born. That would come later.
For now, he needed only purpose.
---
Beneath the tree that had once shaded him in childhood—where he and the other village children used to throw stones at branches and chase squirrels—Kael sat in stillness, the wind brushing the grass flat around him.
He stared at the cracked surface of a stone. At the way moss grew over a scar on the rock like time trying to forget.
Why does the world pretend that silence is goodness?
Why does everyone bow their heads and pray, even as children are chained and sold like livestock?
Kael's hands dug into the dirt, fingers curling into the earth like he could grasp the roots of this cruelty and tear them out.
They say murder is wrong. But what if the one killed was a butcher of lives?
They say theft is sin. But what if you steal back what was already stolen—like freedom?
They say monsters devour.
But what if a monster is the only thing willing to devour a greater evil?
He laughed, bitterly. Quietly.
Was he supposed to be ashamed?
I took the power of a beast to survive.
I held a dying child while his blood leaked into the soil of a land that didn't want him.
And I chose not to turn away.
Would that make him a demon?
Or had the world already damned itself long ago, and simply refused to look in the mirror?
He thought of the village elders—how they closed their doors at sunset, locked themselves behind walls of tradition, and called it peace.
They didn't want justice. They wanted quiet.
They didn't want truth. They wanted rules that comforted them—even if those rules allowed corruption to thrive in the shadows.
Kael's voice was low, more breath than sound:
> "If I must become what they fear to challenge what they ignore… then let them fear me."
The boy he held—the silver-eyed hybrid child—had no name, no family, no justice.
But Kael remembered him. And that remembrance was the seed of a new ethic. Not the one handed down by silent priests or tired men afraid of chaos.
But one built from the ground up. From blood. From loss. From unflinching c
The Path Beyond the Trees"
Night settled over the village, casting long shadows from the crooked fences and ash-colored rooftops. Kael moved without sound, like a thought unspoken. The whispering of the wind through the trees felt different tonight—pointed, as if urging him to listen more carefully.
He stood at the forest's edge, just beyond the northern watch path where the old hunting trails twisted into deeper thickets. Most avoided this path—not because of danger, but because it led nowhere valuable. Or so they believed.
Kael crouched low, fingers brushing across disturbed leaves, faint scuff marks in the soil. Too many. Too small.
Bootprints—light, clumsy, staggered.
Children.
He followed the tracks silently, finding more as he advanced. The trail wasn't old. A day at most.
At a gnarled stump near the stream bend, he found something that halted his breath: a torn ribbon. Pale red. Coarse texture. Not woven by local hands.
The same kind of cloth that had been tied around the silver-eyed boy's wrist.
Not a coincidence. A pattern.
> "They're still hunting."
His mind sharpened, slotting the implications into place.
The boy wasn't an outlier—he was a leak in a pipeline.
The traffickers hadn't stopped. They hadn't even slowed. They'd simply shifted routes. Avoided noise. Adapted.
Kael rose slowly. Behind him, the village remained cloaked in passive silence, oblivious to the flow of stolen lives right beneath its roots.
He looked back only once.
Not in longing. But in assessment.
> "They won't ask questions until the fires reach their doorstep."
He turned back to the forest. The trail was faint but continuous—leading eastward, deeper into the unknown. He would follow it. Not for justice. Not for revenge.
But because he had seen the truth.
And once seen, it could not be unseen.