The next morning, Kel discovered Dyrain had somehow found a way to make yesterday seem easy.
He stood barefoot in the orphanage training yard, staring down at a wide circle carved into the dirt. Three smaller circles had been drawn around it, one representing Internal Qi, one External, and one Soul.
Kel looked at them, then at Dyrain.
"You really like drawing circles."
Dyrain crouched beside the last one. "And you really like talking."
"Usually."
"Get inside."
Kel glanced toward Luno.
Luno was sitting on the fence with his insect jar beside him and his hat pulled low over his head.
"Don't look at me," Luno said. "I'm enjoying this."
"You're next."
Luno's smile disappeared.
Kel grinned and stepped into the circle.
Harven wasn't there this morning. Something had happened near Durnfield's eastern wall before sunrise, and he'd been called away to handle it.
That left Dyrain alone with them.
Kel still wasn't sure how he felt about that.
Yesterday had taught him one important thing about Roku and Solara's teacher.
The man was insane.
Calm about it, but insane.
Dyrain walked around the outside of the circle.
"Harven taught you the basics of sensing External Qi."
Kel nodded. "Feel the environment. Wind. Dirt. Heat. Water. Anything around you that changes when somebody manipulates it."
"Good."
Dyrain stopped.
"Today you're going to touch it."
Kel's eyebrows rose.
"Finally."
Luno leaned forward.
Dyrain noticed Kel's excitement.
"Don't get ahead of yourself."
Kel ignored that.
For weeks, Harven had made him practice sensing the three types of Qi, but most of Kel's actual progress had been with Internal Qi. He could feel that current inside himself now. He could move it through his body, reinforce certain areas, and sometimes react with it before consciously thinking.
External Qi had always been different.
Kel could sense changes around him. He could feel when someone else disturbed the environment.
But whenever he tried reaching for it himself, there was just... nothing.
Dyrain held out his hand.
"Close your eyes."
Kel did.
"Tell me what you feel."
Kel breathed.
Wind moved across his face.
Warm dirt beneath his feet.
Sunlight against his shoulders.
The faint vibration of insects moving somewhere near Luno.
Then another disturbance entered the yard.
Kel's eyes opened.
"That's you."
Dyrain smiled slightly.
"What am I doing?"
Kel concentrated.
The wind hadn't changed.
Neither had the ground.
Then he noticed it.
Heat.
The temperature around Dyrain's hand had risen slightly.
"You're moving heat."
"Good."
Dyrain lowered his hand.
The temperature returned to normal.
"External Qi already exists around you. A warrior doesn't create wind, earth, water, lightning, fire, or any other element from nothing. We use our Qi to interact with what's already there and influence it."
Kel nodded.
That much made sense.
"So how do I do it?"
"Find something."
Kel looked around.
"What?"
"Anything."
Kel stared at him.
"That doesn't help."
"I'm not here to help."
"Then why are you teaching me?"
"I'm starting to understand why Harven looks tired all the time."
Luno laughed from the fence.
Kel gave him the finger without looking.
Dyrain pointed toward a patch of loose dirt.
"Start there."
Kel faced it.
"Don't force your Internal Qi outward," Dyrain said. "External and Internal Qi aren't the same thing. Feel the earth first. Then find where your External core answers it."
Kel closed his eyes again.
He breathed.
The warmth inside his lower body came easily now.
He ignored it.
That was Internal.
He reached farther.
Wind.
Heat.
Earth.
He could feel them.
But when he tried touching them...
Nothing happened.
Kel frowned.
He tried again.
Still nothing.
Minutes passed.
Sweat began forming across his forehead.
"Stop forcing it," Dyrain said.
"I'm not."
"You are."
Kel exhaled sharply.
He relaxed his shoulders and tried again.
Nothing.
Kel opened one eye.
"How long is this supposed to take?"
"As long as it takes."
"That could mean anything."
"It does."
Kel closed his eye again.
Dyrain watched him carefully.
The frustration was beginning.
Exactly what he wanted.
Kel reached outward again.
Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
His jaw tightened.
But something else was happening.
The warmth inside his body was growing stronger.
Dyrain felt it immediately.
There.
Kel was attempting to reach outward, but every time he did, his Qi turned inward instead.
Not because he lacked power.
The opposite.
His body seemed to reject the attempt entirely.
The more Kel tried interacting with the environment, the more his Internal Qi responded.
Dyrain's expression changed.
He had suspected it yesterday.
Now he was becoming certain.
"Again."
Kel groaned.
"I've done it like twenty times."
"Then twenty-one shouldn't kill you."
Kel tried again.
Dyrain raised his hand.
The dirt suddenly shot upward.
Kel's eyes snapped open.
"What the—"
The ground beneath his feet shifted violently.
Kel stumbled.
Another section rose behind him.
He jumped forward.
Dyrain flicked two fingers.
A wall of dirt hardened in front of Kel.
Kel twisted around it.
"Are you supposed to warn me before doing that?"
"No."
Another wave came.
Kel planted his foot.
His Internal Qi moved automatically.
Dyrain saw it.
Kel's core pulsed.
Qi rushed through his legs.
He launched sideways before the ground could catch him.
Dyrain attacked again.
Kel moved.
Again.
Kel ducked.
Again.
This time a chunk of hardened earth shot toward his ribs.
Kel reinforced his side.
The stone struck.
Crack.
It shattered against him.
Kel staggered but stayed upright.
Dyrain stopped.
Kel breathed heavily.
"You're terrible at teaching External Qi."
"I wasn't teaching you External Qi."
Kel frowned.
Dyrain walked toward him.
"I was testing what your body would choose when it stopped having time to think."
Kel looked down at himself.
"Internal."
"Every time."
Kel shrugged.
"That's what I'm better at."
Dyrain didn't answer.
Because that wasn't what concerned him.
Kel wasn't simply better at Internal Qi.
His body had chosen it every single time.
Even when specifically instructed to reach outward.
Even when External Qi should have been the easier response.
Dyrain looked toward the gate.
Harven knew.
He had to.
And suddenly yesterday's conversation made more sense.
Did you really keep a Fireborne Realm boy secret?
Harven hadn't answered him.
Now Dyrain was beginning to understand why.
Kel waved a hand in front of his face.
"You disappeared somewhere."
Dyrain looked at him.
"What?"
"You were staring again."
Luno nodded. "He does that."
Dyrain ignored them.
"Sit down. Rest."
Kel blinked.
"That's it?"
"For you."
Kel grinned at Luno.
Luno immediately hopped off the fence.
"No."
Dyrain pointed toward the circle.
"Yes."
"I learned everything by watching him."
"Then this should be easy."
Luno looked at Kel.
Kel dropped against the fence and smiled.
"Don't look at me. I'm enjoying this."
Luno narrowed his eyes.
"I hate you."
"Get in the circle."
Luno grabbed his insect jar and stepped inside.
Something shifted beneath his hat.
I don't like him.
Luno kept his face straight.
Spark's voice had become clearer over the past few days. Not louder exactly. More complete. There was less guessing now about whether the thoughts belonged to Luno or something else.
Why? Luno thought.
He watches too much.
Luno almost laughed.
So do I.
Spark went quiet.
Dyrain stared at him.
"Something funny?"
"No."
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
Dyrain's eyes moved upward.
Toward Luno's hat.
Spark went completely silent.
That caught Luno's attention.
Normally getting Spark to shut up was the difficult part.
Dyrain held out his hand.
"Give me the jar."
Luno's fingers tightened around it.
"No."
Kel laughed from the fence.
Dyrain raised an eyebrow.
"No?"
"They don't like other people touching it."
Kel looked over.
"They?"
Luno ignored him.
Dyrain didn't.
His eyes sharpened slightly.
"Fine. Keep it."
Luno held the jar against his stomach.
Dyrain crouched in front of him.
"Open it."
Luno hesitated before removing the lid.
Several insects immediately crawled toward the opening, but none left. They gathered around the rim instead.
Dyrain watched them.
Then he raised one finger.
A faint current moved through the yard.
Luno felt it immediately.
External Qi.
It wasn't violent. Dyrain wasn't attacking.
He was guiding something.
The air around the jar shifted.
One of the insects suddenly twitched.
Luno looked down.
"What did you do?"
"Gave it something."
The insect climbed onto the rim.
Its movements changed.
Faster.
Sharper.
Its tiny legs seemed stronger, and for a moment its body carried a faint shimmer.
Luno's eyes widened.
"You gave it Qi."
"External Qi."
Luno stared at the insect.
Dyrain watched him instead.
"How does it feel?"
"To me?"
"To both of you."
Luno frowned.
He could feel the insect.
Not clearly enough to understand thoughts, but its presence had suddenly become stronger.
Excited.
Restless.
Almost energized.
"It likes it."
Dyrain's eyebrow lifted.
"You can tell?"
"I think so."
Dyrain extended his hand again.
Then closed his fingers.
The energy vanished.
The insect immediately slowed.
Luno's head snapped toward Dyrain.
"Give it back."
Dyrain's eyes narrowed.
"Why?"
"Because you took something from it."
"I took back what I gave."
"It doesn't know that."
Dyrain glanced at the insect.
Then at Luno.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
Beneath Luno's hat, Spark stirred.
Again.
Luno froze.
Dyrain noticed.
"What?"
"Nothing."
Dyrain looked at the hat.
"That's twice you've said that."
Kel called from the fence, "He talks to himself now."
"I don't talk to myself."
"That's worse if you're answering somebody."
"Shut up, Kel."
Dyrain almost smiled.
Instead, he pointed toward another insect.
"Watch."
This time he stepped closer.
Two fingers touched lightly against the insect's back.
Luno felt the difference immediately.
This wasn't the environment changing.
It wasn't wind, heat, earth, or anything outside.
The energy was coming directly from Dyrain's body.
Internal Qi.
Luno's expression changed.
"You can put Internal Qi into something else?"
"For a short time."
Dyrain's voice became more serious.
"It's harder. Internal Qi belongs to the body that creates it. Giving it away means forcing another living body to accept something that wasn't made for it."
The insect shuddered.
Luno immediately leaned closer.
"Careful."
Dyrain watched him.
"You felt that too?"
"Yes."
The insect's presence had changed differently this time.
External Qi had made it energetic.
Internal Qi made it feel powerful.
Heavy.
Its tiny body seemed almost too small for what Dyrain had placed inside it.
Dyrain withdrew his fingers.
The Internal Qi flowed back toward him.
The insect stumbled.
Luno's hand moved instantly beneath it.
He caught it before it fell from the rim.
"That's enough."
Dyrain didn't respond.
He was watching Luno's face.
Then the insect.
Then the hat.
Spark's presence had changed.
Dyrain could feel it now.
Not clearly.
Not enough to identify exactly what it was doing.
But something inside that hat was paying very close attention.
Dyrain raised his hand toward the insect again.
Luno pulled the jar back.
"I said that's enough."
Kel stopped smiling.
Dyrain looked at Luno.
There was no fear in the boy's expression.
Only irritation.
Protectiveness.
Dyrain slowly lowered his hand.
"You're willing to interrupt someone stronger than you over an insect?"
Luno looked down at the tiny creature crawling across his palm.
"Why wouldn't I?"
"Most people wouldn't care."
"They're alive."
Dyrain's eyes shifted toward the hat again.
There.
A tiny pulse.
Soul Qi.
Not from Luno.
From something else.
Dyrain finally understood part of what he'd been sensing.
He stepped closer.
"Take off your hat."
Luno immediately stepped backward.
"No."
Kel looked between them.
Dyrain's voice remained calm.
"Why?"
"Because it's my hat."
"That's not why."
Luno didn't answer.
Dyrain took another step.
Something moved beneath the fabric.
Luno felt Spark tense.
Don't.
Dyrain stopped.
His eyes narrowed.
So it could sense him too.
Interesting.
"Spark."
Luno froze.
Kel sat forward.
"What?"
Silence filled the yard.
Luno stared at Dyrain.
"How do you know that name?"
Dyrain ignored the question.
He spoke toward Luno's hat instead.
"Come out."
Nothing happened.
Kel looked at Luno.
"Who the hell is Spark?"
Luno didn't answer.
No.
Dyrain could almost feel the refusal.
His expression softened slightly.
"So that's how it is."
Luno's suspicion deepened.
"How what is?"
Dyrain stepped backward.
"Spark chose you."
Luno stared.
"You know what Spark is?"
"Enough."
"That's not an answer."
"It wasn't supposed to be."
Kel stood.
"Can somebody explain what we're talking about?"
"No," Luno and Dyrain said together.
Kel threw up his hands.
"Of course."
Dyrain returned his attention to Luno.
Now the experiment made sense.
External Qi had entered the insect.
Spark reacted.
Internal Qi had entered the insect.
Spark reacted differently.
And when Dyrain had taken either energy away, Luno had noticed the change almost immediately.
But that wasn't what interested him most.
It was Luno's first reaction.
Not curiosity.
Not excitement over discovering what the insects might become.
Protection.
Dyrain had seen creatures like Spark choose warriors before.
They rarely chose based only on strength.
Sometimes they chose potential.
Sometimes compatibility.
Sometimes something far simpler.
Character.
Dyrain looked at the insect still crawling across Luno's hand.
Then at the battered old hat hiding Spark.
"I wanted to know something."
Luno waited.
"Why Spark picked you."
Luno's eyes narrowed.
"And?"
Dyrain turned away.
"I think I'm starting to understand."
Luno hated answers like that.
"You're as annoying as Harven."
From somewhere beyond the yard came Harven's distant voice.
"I heard that!"
Kel burst out laughing.
Even Luno smiled.
But Dyrain didn't.
As he walked away, his thoughts remained on what he'd just witnessed.
Kel's body refused the world and pulled everything inward.
Luno was doing something completely different.
His Qi wasn't separating him from the living things around him.
It was connecting him to them.
And whatever Spark truly saw inside Luno, Dyrain suspected this was only the beginning.
---
Far south of Durnfield, Roku crouched beside the remains of the burned caravan.
The morning wind pushed sand across warped wheels and blackened wood.
Solara stood several feet away, studying tracks that disappeared into the open Badlands.
The survivor they'd spoken to was gone.
No footsteps.
No disturbed sand.
Nothing.
Roku searched the ground again.
"He couldn't have disappeared."
Solara looked toward where the old man had stood.
"I felt him."
Roku stood.
"His Soul Qi?"
She nodded.
"Barely."
That bothered her more than if she'd felt nothing.
"He was there."
Roku looked across the wreckage.
Then he returned to the wagon where he'd found the melted metal.
Human Qi had done this.
That much he was certain of.
He scraped more soot from the frame.
Something had been carved underneath.
Roku stopped.
"Solara."
She came over.
Beneath the soot was a symbol burned into the metal.
A flame surrounded by a broken circle.
Solara stared at it.
"Hellfire?"
"Maybe."
Roku stood.
The mission contracts in Welther had led them here.
Missing caravans.
Unknown movements.
Strange symbols.
Now someone claiming to be a survivor had appeared, warned them about people purging cursed bloodlines, named Hellfire, and vanished without leaving a trace.
Too convenient.
Solara seemed to reach the same conclusion.
"You think the old man wanted us to find this."
Roku nodded.
"The question is why."
A sound came from the ridge.
Both moved immediately.
Roku's Frontier Arms cleared their holsters.
Solara's fans opened.
Three figures stood along the distant ridge.
Watching them.
The wind shifted.
Their cloaks lifted.
Flame symbols marked their backs.
Roku's eyes narrowed.
"There."
The three figures turned.
Then ran.
Roku surged forward.
Lightning cracked beneath his feet.
"Don't lose them!"
Solara followed.
---
That night, Durnfield was quiet.
Kel lay on his bed with one arm behind his head.
He should have been sleeping.
Instead, he stared at the ceiling.
He kept thinking about the morning.
External Qi.
He'd felt it.
He knew he'd felt it.
The earth.
The wind.
The heat.
Everything Harven and Dyrain described was there.
So why couldn't he touch any of it?
Kel raised his hand.
He concentrated.
Nothing.
He tried again.
Still nothing.
Frustration tightened his jaw.
Then he felt the familiar warmth inside his stomach.
Kel stopped.
His Internal Qi.
It moved slowly upward.
Through his chest.
Shoulder.
Arm.
Into his palm.
Kel stared.
For half a second, a faint orange glow appeared beneath his skin.
Not fire.
Not yet.
Just heat.
Then it vanished.
Kel sat up.
"What the hell...?"
Across the room, Luno was awake too.
He hadn't heard Kel.
He was listening to something else.
His insect jar sat beside his bed.
Tiny voices brushed against the edge of his thoughts.
Not words he could fully understand.
Not yet.
But beneath them was Spark.
Clearer than all the others.
He's burning.
Luno looked toward Kel.
"What?"
Kel quickly closed his hand.
"Nothing."
Luno stared at him.
Kel stared back.
Neither believed the other.
Outside the orphanage, Dyrain stood alone beneath the night sky.
He could feel both of them.
Two different awakenings.
Two completely different paths.
And for the first time since arriving in Durnfield, Dyrain understood why Harven had been so afraid of anyone discovering this place.
The problem wasn't that Kel was failing to awaken External Qi.
The problem was what his body was becoming it instead.