Pain hit first.
Not like a bruise or a cut — something deeper. Like his bones were trying to crawl out of his skin.
Kael gasped awake, choking on dust. His vision swam with flickering shadows and shapes. For a moment, he didn't know where he was. The last thing he remembered was Torrin's sneer, the cliff edge, Feyla's voice shouting his name—
Then the world had vanished beneath him.
Now… a ceiling. Rough stone above. A low glow from a small fire. The air smelled like dried herbs and ash.
He was lying on a pile of old cloth and beast pelts inside a cave.
"You're awake."
The voice came from a figure sitting nearby, cloaked in a worn beast-hide robe, hair long and silver with streaks of black. His body looked thin, weathered. But his eyes — pale and colorless — locked onto Kael like they saw everything.
"Wh-where…?" Kael's throat burned.
"You fell through the ridge. Cracked the roof of my den on the way down. Almost broke my table." The man coughed a dry laugh.
Kael tried to sit up. His ribs screamed in protest.
"Careful. You've been out for three days."
Kael froze. "Three…?"
The man poured a small cup of something warm and handed it to him.
Kael drank. It tasted bitter — but soothing.
"I… who are you?" Kael asked, still blinking through the haze.
The man didn't answer. Instead, he leaned forward, gaze still fixed on Kael. "You're from the academy. One of the trainees."
Kael nodded.
"No power," the man said flatly.
Kael flinched, but said nothing.
"Plenty of bruises though," the man added. "I saw your memories when I moved you. They bleed off of you like steam."
Kael looked down. "They hate me. Because I'm useless."
The man's eyes narrowed. "You're not useless."
Kael said nothing.
"Just… unopened."
The silence stretched.
Kael shifted again, wincing. "Why did you help me?"
The man looked toward the cave mouth — now just a jagged slit where sunlight barely touched the stone.
"Because I've been waiting," he said softly. "For you."
Kael stared. "What?"
The man stood with effort, bones popping. He walked closer, kneeling beside Kael's bed.
"There's no time to explain it all. Not now." His voice was hoarse but steady. "But I can show you."
He placed a hand on Kael's forehead. It felt like ice and fire at once.
And suddenly — Kael saw himself.
Flashes of memory. Training field. Stolen tokens. Fists. Gravity slams. Isolation. Loneliness. Endurance.
Then the fall.
Then… the dark.
The man's voice echoed in Kael's skull.
"All that pain... you carried it without breaking. That's why."
"You're the one I've been waiting for."
The fire in the cave dimmed. A pressure filled the room like a storm building in reverse — cold and silent.
The man stood again, but now… something had changed.
His body looked like it was unraveling — pieces of him wisping into shadow, like smoke escaping a dying flame.
"Take it," he whispered.
A coil of black mist spiraled from his chest — like liquid void — and snapped onto Kael's right wrist. He screamed as heat and cold rushed through him. The black mist carved into his skin like ink, forming a single thin ring around his arm.
A mark. A code.
The man was almost gone now.
Kael's vision blurred again.
"Your strength will grow," the man said from everywhere and nowhere.
"But the cost will always remain."
With one last gust of windless shadow, the man vanished.
Kael collapsed back onto the bedding.
Unconscious.
Again.