One afternoon, after drills, I found him sitting alone in the courtyard, sharpening his blade. The sun glinted off the steel, his movements methodical.
"Kael," I said, sitting across from him. "You've been with us for a while now. I have to ask—what happened to your old team?"
His hands froze for just a moment. Then he set the blade down, his face unreadable.
"That… is not a story for today," he said quietly.
"Will you ever tell me?"
He looked at me then, something raw flickering in his eyes before he masked it. "Another time."
And that was all he gave me.
I didn't press.
The shift came slowly, but even Teshan noticed it. Kael took wounds for us without hesitation, warned us of ambushes we might've missed, and fought as though our survival mattered as much as his own.
One evening, after a brutal fight with a twin-headed beast, we sat in a circle, bruised and bloody but alive. Teshan broke the silence.
"I was wrong about you."
Kael looked up, startled.
