The pale color diffused like ink through water-smoothly, slowly, purposefully, yet with a strange reluctance-through the distant rooftops to herald the dawn. Kael woke before the bell rang, lying still in the muted half-light while his thoughts slipped between memory and an uneasy anticipation that did not fade with the night. The whispering thread beneath his awareness had not stirred since the previous evening, but its absence felt more concerning than its presence. Something that intrusive should not have grown quiet so easily.
Brion was already up, sitting on the edge of his bunk and fastening the clasps of his uniform with an air of lingering worry that he tried to mask. As Kael sat up, Brion looked over; a brief flash of relief spread across his features before settling into its habitual concern.
"You slept?" Brion asked.
"For a few hours," Kael replied, stretching the stiffness from his shoulders. "It wasn't exactly restful."
"That's still better than none." Brion paused, he continued, "Are you going to tell Avel if anything else happens?"
"Yes."
"You mean it?"
Kael ran a hand through his hair. "I'm not planning to let this get out of control."
Brion still seemed somewhat reassured, though the tension in his jaw remained. "Good."
They walked towards the mess hall where the chatter that greeted them seemed an unsettling contrast to the quiet undercurrent of Kael's mind. At first, everything looked the same. Students moved down the line, warming bread wafting into the air, and spoon and bowel clinking in a manner of cadence that was instantly recognizable. Still, however, Kael felt a shift he just couldn't place, a feeling that something in the atmosphere leaned forward just a little and listened.
Seris joined them at the table, his expression subdued to match the somberness of Kael's mood. A little later, Mirren followed, his gait steadfast and deliberate. He sat down silently and glanced around the hall before he spoke to Kael:
"How are you feeling?" Mirren asked, his tone polite but weighted with curiosity.
"Slightly more rested," Kael replied. "Still… aware of things I'd rather not be aware of."
Mirren nodded slowly. "The ground yesterday--whens you said something touched your awareness--did that feel external or internal to you?"
Kael had paused at the question, his curiosity piqued. Most would have asked if it was frightening, or painful, but Mirren approached it like a puzzle laid before him. "External," Kael said. "But it responded to me. Like it recognized something."
Seris set her spoon down. "Known? How?"
"I don't know how to describe it," Kael admitted. "Not recognition like a person recognizes another, but more like… something acknowledging a shift."
Brion looked discomforted. "That sounds very wrong.
Mirren tapped the side of his bowl thoughtfully. "Avel's reaction was interesting."
"What do you mean?" Seris asked.
"She wasn't surprised," said Mirren. "Concerned, yes, but not surprised. She knew such sensitivities were possible."
Kael recalled Avel's even voice that had told him he stood near a shifting hinge. "She said I wasn't in danger."
"Usually that means the opposite," Brion muttered.
Kael couldn't disagree, but kept the thought to himself.
The morning's training got underway shortly thereafter, though it was clear the instructors had revised their plans on the fly. Instead of resonance exercises or perception drills, they took the group to a series of pathways built into the side of a wooded slope behind the academy. Avel stood at the front, her voice carrying across the assembled students.
"Today's training will involve motion, stability, and awareness of surroundings under stress," she told him. "These pathways shift slightly when stepped on. You will learn to adapt your balance, not by anticipating the shifts, but by reading the subtle cues that precede them."
Brion groaned softly. Seris squared her shoulders. Mirren seemed to welcome the challenge before it had even begun.
Kael examined the catwalks closely: each of them merely a narrow board straddling a shallow pit of rounded stones, its position maintained by stout rope that seemed strong enough, yet the location of anchor-points implied that the boards would seesaw or shift sideways to a greater or lesser degree.
Avel divided them into pairs. Kael ended up with Seris, who gave him an abrupt, decisive nod the moment their eyes met. Brion was paired with a gangly student who looked as ill at ease as he was, while Mirren was stuck with one of the stone-faced senior trainees.
The path Kael was given to run started off with a slight gradient before curving into a serpentlike shape. Avel motioned for them to start.
It was Seris who took the first step forward, her movements measured as the plank under her feet seesawed. Kael followed, his weight shifting with the tilt. The wood creaked softly; the rope above them pulled taut, but the movement was manageable.
"Feels almost easy," Seris whispered.
"That means it won't stay that way," Kael replied.
The next plank tilted sharply as Seris stepped on it, nearly throwing her balance. She caught herself with a sharp intake of breath. Kael steadied her from behind, his boot landing on the board with enough pressure to level it.
"Thanks," Seris said, composed once more.
"You took it well."
"Barely."
They moved in slow, choreographed strides. Midcurve, Kael felt the faintest shudder beneath the boards. Neither Seris's movement nor his own caused it. It came from the supports of rope themselves, as though tension built in one direction before shifting in another.
"Wait," Kael said in a very soft tone.
Seris paused. "What?"
Kael glanced down at the next plank. "It's going to tilt backward."
"How do you know?"
"I don't. Just step carefully."
Seris lifted her foot and put it on the board, and the back immediately dipped backward. She caught her balance by pushing forward, the maneuver smooth enough to look planned.
Seris exhaled. "Alright. That was impressive.
"I just felt something," Kael said.
A faint shiver traced down his spine. Not the thread. Not the whisper. Just a heightened awareness.
Seris noticed his expression. "Is it the same thing as yesterday?"
"No," he said, "this feels normal.
She nodded slowly, though uncertainty still clouded her gaze.
The rest of the pathway took them some minutes, and they completed it with a quick rhythm that fitted the adjustments of the boards almost intuitively. Avel watched them with an introspective look.
At the end of the session, the tutors told the group to take a long break. Brion came near looking much more exhausted than Kael had anticipated.
"These planks are going to haunt me," Brion said. "If I dream about falling, I'm blaming all of you."
Seris laughed, her eyes easing just a fraction. "It wasn't so bad."
"It was terrible," Brion persisted. "And if that wasn't enough, Mirren kept yelling at me not to think."
Mirren raised an eyebrow from the short distance she was standing. "You overthought every step. You were fighting the boards instead of moving with them."
Brion grumbled something about unnatural expectations.
They sat in the shade of trees lining the training slope. The forest behind the academy had always worn an atmosphere of quiet serenity, with its thick canopy filtering the light into green and gold patches. Today, however, Kael noticed something different. The shadows between the trees felt too dense, not in color, but in presence. The air in that direction carried a heaviness, subtle yet foreign to any ordinary woodland.
The impression was subtle, yet striking.
Mirren followed his gaze. "You see it too."
"What do you see?" Seris asked.
Mirren spoke up before Kael could. "The forest feels deeper."
Brion frowned. "Deeper how? It's the same forest."
"No," Mirren said softly. "It isn't."
Kael shifted forward with a slight incline. "It seems like there's something behind it.
Seris frowned. "Behind the forest? That can't be right."
Kael struggled to explain. "Not literally behind. More like… the shadows are layered. Like there's a second depth beneath the first."
Mirren nodded. "Exactly."
Brion shuddered. "You two need to stop saying things like that in the middle of the day."
A light breeze fluttered through the trees, but Kael noticed the leaves didn't flutter just quite the same across all branches. Certain patches moved with the wind, and others lagged behind by a fraction of a moment, as if responding to a completely different current.
Seris followed his gaze. "What's wrong now?"
Kael blinked, and the discrepancy disappeared. Its leaves moved in normal synchrony once more.
"Nothing. I think."
"You think?" Brion asked, appalled.
Before Kael could elaborate, the afternoon study bell rang out. The shift back to routine was welcome, though Kael moved with lingering unease.
The interior of the Archive was always cooler than the rest of the academy, and the smell of aged parchment and polished stone fostered a quieting atmosphere that promoted silent study. Kael sat toward the rear, where high windows slung bars of muted gold across desks.
The Archivist was a tall woman with a quiet, introspective authority about her. She handed out section manuscripts for them to read. Kael opened his, making his gaze fall on the printed lines, but the silence around him left too much space in his head for his thoughts to wander.
Halfway through, a subtle change in the air brought him to look up.
Not a sound, not a movement.
More like an absence.
Something in the far corner of the Archive drew his gaze. A shadow lingered beneath one of the tall shelves, darker than the shade around it, a form shaped not by objects or light but by something altogether different. It didn't move, and it didn't breathe, but Kael felt a stillness inside of it that seemed intentional.
He immediately looked away.
The Archivist looked at him, her eyes on his stance for a moment before refocusing her attention on her work. Seris, two rows ahead of him, sensed the change in his attention and turned in her seat, an eyebrow furrowed.
Kael didn't turn back to the shadow.
But it was a feeling he had.
He felt it watching him. The thread inside him quivered faintly, one single quiet pulse. It was the same whisper he had hoped had silenced itself, and now it began to stir, subtle as a breath on cool glass, returning with patience that chilled him more than any overt presence could. Kael shut his book. The world had begun to look backward. And whatever watched was no longer content to stay afar.