The morning after the storm tasted of ash and salt.
Kael awoke slowly. His ribs ached. His knuckles were raw, split where bone had struck stone. But the world around him no longer burned.
He blinked up at a pale ceiling of weathered wood. The air was warm, scented faintly of herbs and old parchment. Somewhere, birds sang—gentle, distant.
He sat up with a wince.
"You're awake," said a voice beside him.
Leanardo sat cross-legged on a low stool, his white mantle folded neatly beside him. He held a steaming bowl of broth, passing it to Kael without ceremony.
Kael took it, hesitated, then drank. The warmth filled the hollow ache inside him.
"Where are we?"
"A temple library outside town. Abandoned, mostly. Quiet."
Kael lowered the bowl. "I didn't mean to—"
"I know," Leanardo said. His amber eyes held no judgment. "But you need to understand the weight of what sleeps inside you."
Kael looked down at his hands.
They had once held a fishing rod, a wooden sword, scraps of cloth. Now they had nearly broken a man's spine.
"You fought like someone remembering. Not learning. Something ancient stirred when you lost control. I've seen it before—in relics, in ruins. Never in a boy."
Kael didn't answer. Instead, he whispered, "They were all gone. Melia… Jonar… Nia… I saw them. Again."
His voice cracked.
"Not dead. Not like before. Just—there. In the light."
Leanardo said nothing, letting the silence hold the grief.
Kael closed his eyes.
---
Melia laughed as she flicked lint from Kael's shoulder, her golden curls bouncing despite her protests. "You looked dashing in my work, you know," she teased. Her fingers, stained with ink and dye, brushed against his wrist as she measured him for another mended shirt.
The shop behind her was whole. Sunlight painted the windows. A breeze lifted spools of colored thread.
He reached for her, but she stepped away, still smiling.
Then came Jonar and Nia—Jonar with his crooked teeth and booming laugh, tossing Kael a line as they sat knee-deep in the river. Nia scolded them both from the bank, arms crossed, before breaking into a rare, warm chuckle.
"You'll never catch a thing flailing like that," she said, tossing him a hunk of bread.
Renna skipped by in a blur of flowers, waving a petal-covered parchment. "Look, Kael! I made you something!" A crude drawing of a man holding a sword beneath a sky of stars.
Mirche the bookseller nodded from his stool beside the shop. "Your debt's forgiven. Just promise me you'll read that one slowly."
Harven sparred with him beneath torchlight in the barracks courtyard. "Loosen your stance, boy. You'll die with your spine that stiff."
All of them… alive. Happy. Whole.
Then the memory faded. And they were gone again.
---
"They weren't just memories," Kael murmured.
Leanardo nodded. "They're the root. Not the rage. Not the grief. They're why you haven't become a monster."
Kael stared at his reflection in the broth. For a moment, he saw lightning dancing behind his eyes.
"I don't know what I want," he said. "You told me to find the Spectre. But I don't even know what that is. Why should I chase a myth when I can't even save what's real?"
Leanardo stood.
He walked to the stone courtyard outside and gestured for Kael to follow. "Because it's not about chasing myths. It's about chasing meaning. Purpose. The Spectre isn't just a legend—it's a question. What do you want to become, Kael?"
They stood beneath the gray morning sky, shadows long and soft.
"Show me your stance."
Kael blinked. "What?"
"If you're to control the power inside you, we start here. With form."
Kael hesitated, then stepped forward, planting his feet. His shoulders squared. Hands lifted.
Leanardo circled him like a craftsman studying broken steel. "Too rigid. Too defensive. Again."
They drilled through the morning. Footwork. Balance. Breath. Kael faltered, staggered, cursed under his breath. But he learned.
Each movement reminded him of Renna's flower drawings, of Jonar's firm grip, of Melia's smile.
They were not weights on his soul.
They were wings.
By midday, Kael collapsed, sweat-soaked and panting. But there was no rage left in him. Only resolve.
Leanardo sat beside him, offering a water skin. "That thing inside you—it doesn't define you. Your choices will."
Kael drank.
"Then I choose this," he said. "To learn. To fight with purpose. Not vengeance."
Leanardo smiled faintly.
"Good," he said. "Then your real journey begins."