By the time we limped back to the village, dawn was bleeding across the horizon.
Kael had bound my shoulder with strips torn from her tunic, and I had wrapped her sprained wrist in rough bark and cloth. We leaned against each other as we walked, swaying like drunks, but we were alive. Barely.
When we reached the outskirts, a farmer spotted us. His eyes widened. Within minutes, a crowd had formed. Voices rose, sharp with suspicion.
"What happened?"
"Where were they?"
"Look at their blood—by the gods, what did they face?"
The elder arrived before panic could spiral further. He was a tall man with hair white as bone and a gaze like tempered steel. His presence alone silenced the whispers.
He looked at us, then at the blood drying on our clothes, then back at us. "Explain."
My mind raced. Telling the truth was impossible. No Hollow should have survived a Nightfang. If they knew the reality, our secret would be exposed, and they'd crush it—or us.
So I bowed my head, forcing my voice low and trembling. "We… we were gathering herbs beyond the southern ridge. We didn't notice the tracks until too late."
Kael picked up the thread instantly. "A beast came at us. Not a Nightfang—smaller, but fast. We ran. It cornered us near the cliffs. We had nothing but sticks and stones."
I let my breath hitch, adding weakness to the words. "We were lucky. It slipped. Fell. Broke its neck."
The elder studied us for a long, unbearable silence. His eyes searched my face, then Kael's. His hand brushed the air, silencing the muttering villagers.
"You fought. Poorly, from the look of you. But you survived. That much is… remarkable."
He crouched, examining the gashes along my thigh and shoulder. His mouth tightened. "You'll live. If infection doesn't take you."
He straightened, turning to the crowd. "They were reckless. Foolish. But the blood on them is their own. Let them heal. Let this be a lesson."
And just like that, the scrutiny shifted into something else. A mix of disdain, pity, and reluctant admiration. Hollows had no right to survive such encounters—but somehow we had.
The healer's hut smelled of bitter herbs and smoke. They cleaned our wounds with stinging poultices, bound us in linen wraps, and left us with clay jars of paste. Two weeks, they said. Two weeks of rest before we could walk without pain.
Rest. The word felt like a curse.
Kael lay on the cot beside mine, her arm wrapped from wrist to elbow. She stared at the ceiling. "We can't slip again," she whispered. "If the elder had pressed harder—if anyone had tracked the beast's corpse—"
"They didn't," I said. "We bought time. That's all we needed."
"Time for what?"
"To get better."
Her lips curved into a crooked grin despite the pain. "Then we'll bleed again, won't we?"
I met her gaze. "As many times as it takes."
The two weeks crawled by. Our bodies screamed with every movement, and we obeyed the healer's instructions for fear of reopening the wounds. But even in stillness, we trained.
For me, it was meditation—feeling the resonance of wind rattling the hut's walls, the subtle tremor of footsteps passing outside, the faint vibration of Kael's breathing. My telekinetic flickers grew steadier, less wild. I could hold a stone in the air for minutes now, instead of seconds.
Kael practiced with her fingers, twirling air currents no bigger than candle flames, coaxing them into shapes. Spirals. Whispers. Little tricks. They drained her, but she smiled through it, proud of every wisp.
By the time the healer allowed us to move freely again, our bodies were weaker but our resonance sharper.
The next two months became our crucible.
At dawn, while the village trained their Naturals, we slipped into the woods.
Kael ran drills until her feet barely touched the ground, weaving gusts to push her faster, sharper. She discovered she could angle the wind to pivot midstride, changing direction like a leaf caught in a whirlwind. It left her dizzy, but it was progress.
I focused on control. At first, I lifted stones—clumsy, rattling, often slipping. Then I stacked them, spun them, shaped them into rings that circled my arms. The effort tore headaches through my skull, but slowly, the strain lessened.
Sometimes we trained together—her wind pushing stones I guided, my telekinesis redirecting gusts she sent astray. The synergy was raw, unpolished, but alive.
And after every session, we collapsed side by side, laughing despite the bruises and exhaustion.
Life outside training didn't change much. The village still saw us as Hollows, good for labor, nothing more. But there was a subtle shift in how they looked at us.
Maybe it was the scars that healed across our skin. Maybe it was the way we carried ourselves—heads higher, steps steadier. Maybe it was whispers of our "reckless encounter" with the beast.
Whatever it was, no one struck us when we passed anymore. No one dared call us useless to our faces.
We weren't respected. But we were no longer dismissed.
One night, Kael and I sat by a small fire deep in the woods, away from prying eyes. She leaned back against a log, eyes closed, letting the smoke curl around her face.
"We're still barely at the bottom," she said softly. "A real Natural could kill us in seconds."
"True," I admitted. I tossed a pebble into the air, guiding it lazily in circles before letting it drop. "But two months ago, we couldn't have killed that beast. Now we could."
She opened her eyes, watching me. "And two months from now?"
I let the question hang in the air.
Then I smiled, faint but certain. "Two months from now, we won't just survive. We'll win."
Kael grinned back, fierce and bright.
And in the crackle of firelight, in the quiet of the night, I felt it again—that hum. Not just the resonance of earth or wind, but something deeper. A rhythm not of fear, but of promise.
We had bled, nearly died, and lied to survive. But those lies had bought us what we needed most.
Time.
Time to sharpen ourselves into something the world had never seen.
And though the village still called us Hollows, in my chest, the truth burned brighter with every heartbeat.
We were not Hollow anymore.
We were Echoes.
And soon, the world would hear us.