Two years passed.
Not quickly, not slowly—just steadily, like the patient ticking of a clock no one else could hear.
When you live in secret, when your every discovery must be hidden under silence and shadows, time feels different. Each day is an echo of the last, but within that echo, tiny differences accumulate. A shift in breathing. A flicker of sensation. A spark that fades a second slower than it did yesterday.
That was how we measured progress.
Not in grand bursts of fire or the shattering of stone.
But in small victories, felt only by us.
I had learned, at last, how to shape my resonance into something tangible.
It was clumsy, awkward—like holding a blade by the wrong end. But it was real.
When I sat in stillness, I could feel the world's hum now with more clarity than ever. The soil beneath my hands pulsed faintly, a vibration that was not sound, yet rang through my body. If I slowed my breath enough, quieted my mind until even my heartbeat felt distant, I could make that hum answer me.
At first, it was just a tingle across my palms. A faint stirring in the air.
Then, one night, the soil itself shifted. Barely—a small quiver, like the earth sighing beneath me. I remember gasping, my concentration breaking, the resonance collapsing instantly. But the proof was there.
I had touched the flow.
It was not the fire of a Weaver or the strength of a Bearer. It was subtle. Gentle. Like coaxing an animal from its den, not forcing it to obey.
From that night onward, I was no longer a Hollow pretending at secrets.
I was something new.
An Echo.
Kael's progress was different.
Where mine came in silence, hers came in storms.
She could never sit still the way I did. Meditation frustrated her. Stillness suffocated her. But when she moved—when her body flowed through forms, leaps, and spins—something else happened.
The air began to listen.
At first, it was playful. A faint stirring in the grass when she passed. A breeze rising suddenly when she spun too quickly. But over months, it became more.
I watched her once on the edge of the village fields, the moon hanging heavy above. She ran barefoot across the rough ground, faster than I thought her small frame should allow. Each step seemed to catch the wind, until it wasn't just following her—it was pushing her.
Her hair whipped around her face, her laughter echoing in the night. And then, as if the wind itself were caught in her rhythm, a stream of air burst outward, knocking loose a dozen leaves from the branches above.
She froze, wide-eyed.
And then she laughed harder.
That was Kael's way. Where I questioned, analyzed, doubted—she simply leapt.
We trained in secret, always.
The village still called us Hollows. To them, our only worth was in labor. I hauled water, split wood, and carried grain by day. Kael worked in the fields, her hands blistered and calloused. To the elders, we were nothing but tools.
But in the stolen hours of night, under starlight or hidden within the trees, we built something greater.
Resonant Tuning was no longer just an idea.
It was becoming a path.
Our first real milestone came after a year.
I had grown comfortable with the hum of the world, but I wanted more than sensation. I wanted control. Something that could prove, even if only to myself, that I was truly wielding this power.
So I tried something simple.
A stone.
I placed it in the dirt before me, small and rough. My hands hovered above it as I slowed my breath, let my heartbeat fall into rhythm. I listened.
The hum came. Subtle. Patient.
And I matched it.
At first, nothing. Then a flicker. Then the faintest vibration against my palms. My focus wavered, sweat beading across my forehead. I clenched my jaw, forcing myself to remain still.
And then, with the gentlest shift—
The stone moved.
Barely a twitch. But enough that the dirt beneath it shifted.
I collapsed back, breathless, heart hammering. But I laughed. Quiet, disbelieving laughter.
For the first time in two lifetimes, I had done something impossible.
I had moved the world with more than muscle.
Kael's first milestone was louder.
She had been practicing in the fields, spinning in tighter and tighter arcs until her body blurred. The air stirred, stronger and stronger. I could feel the pressure building around her, the rhythm between her heartbeat and the wind syncing like drumbeats in harmony.
And then—whoosh.
A burst of air exploded outward, knocking me flat on my back. Dust and grass tore up around her, her laughter echoing above the rush of wind.
When I sat up, coughing and scowling, she only grinned, hair wild around her face.
"Beginner's luck," she said.
But it wasn't luck. It was resonance.
And it was only the beginning.
We catalogued everything.
Breathing rhythms, emotional states, environmental factors. I learned that my resonance deepened strongest near soil, trees, or running water. The hum was clearest when the world was alive and still around me. Noise, anger, or haste broke it instantly.
Kael's resonance thrived on movement, but also music. Sometimes, when she hummed to herself while running, the wind responded even faster. Rhythm was her key.
We were mapping the edges of a language no one else spoke.
And though we were clumsy, though our strength was nothing compared to even the weakest Weaver, the progress was ours.
Two years.
That was how long it took for us to rise from nothing to the faintest spark of ability.
Two years of blisters, exhaustion, frustration, and countless failures. Two years of stolen hours, whispered theories, and bruised pride.
But we were no longer Hollow.
I could make stones shiver, dust stir, small objects tremble with effort.
Kael could summon bursts of wind strong enough to knock over buckets, scatter leaves, and push herself faster across the fields.
We were still beginners, fragile and clumsy, but we had begun.
And in the quiet of night, as Kael slept with the grin of someone who had outrun the wind itself, I sat staring at the stars.
A thought returned to me.
This world believed only the gifted could wield Aetherka. That fate was written at birth. That Hollows were nothing but shadows.
But we had proven otherwise.
We had found the resonance.
And if two forgotten children could do this in secret…
Then one day, all Hollows could.
The world was not ready for that truth.
But it would come.
Because the spark was burning now. Quietly. Patiently.
And fire—no matter how small—always spreads.