Kael sat in his rocking chair, watching the fire dance in the hearth as his thoughts drifted.
'Is the offer I posted on the black market really that difficult to solve?'
The refinement offer had been up for nearly three weeks now, yet only a single customer had come forward. At this point, Kael had almost started to feel grateful toward Cain.
'People must be terrified of paying two hundred and fifty mindstones up front…'
A slow, rhythmic sound echoed through the cabin as Kael tapped his finger.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Kael turned toward the door.
'Another Pale One?'
He rose from the chair.
Lately, the Pale Ones had been appearing more frequently than they had even a week ago. If Kael spent a full day at the cabin, it was almost guaranteed he would have killed at least two before nightfall.
'Not a Pale One?'
Kael studied the figure standing in the doorway.
"Can I help you?" he asked.
The woman slowly turned toward him. Her eyes were sunken, rimmed with exhaustion, dark bags hanging beneath them. Black streaks cut down her cheeks where tears had dried long ago. Whatever grief had hollowed her out had not been recent.
Her gaze slid over him without shame. It traced his frame, lingered on his chest, his shoulders, and finally settled on his face.
She stared for a long moment.
Then something flickered behind her eyes.
She slowly reached out toward him.
'Do I know her?'
Kael sifted through faces and names, recent encounters, fleeting memories. Nothing surfaced.
"I have no business with you," he said, already reaching for the door.
Then he froze.
He did know her.
The realization hit too late.
Kael snapped forward, fingers cutting through the air to seize her wrist.
Too late.
Her fingertip brushed his abdomen.
The impact came without sound.
Kael's stomach collapsed inward as if struck by a mountain. The force detonated through him, folding flesh and bone, ripping the breath from his lungs. Blood erupted from his mouth in a violent spray.
The world went white.
Then it stretched.
Colors smeared into thin, screaming lines as his body was hurled backward. He crashed through the cabin wall, splintering wood and stone, then tore through the far side in a storm of debris.
He flew.
Trees snapped around him like matchsticks as he tore through the forest, limbs flailing uselessly. Each collision drove him farther, until the ground finally rose up to meet him in a brutal, bone-rattling halt.
Silence followed.
Snow drifted down through the wreckage, settling gently over broken branches and blood-darkened earth.
Kael stumbled forward falling onto his knees.
'She must have noticed it then.'
Blood poured from his mouth onto the earth.
Kael forced himself upright.
A small figure stepped through what remained of the cabin door, then calmly through the hole his body had carved through the far wall. Snow drifted in behind her.
Kael rolled his neck, easing the stiffness with a dull crack.
'A few more blows from her and I'd be dead.'
He opened his mouth wide, rows of blood-stained teeth exposed, and let another mouthful of dark red spill onto the snow.
She stopped a few arm-lengths away.
A smile tugged at her lips, the kind worn by someone unmoored from themselves. Fresh tears slid down her cheeks, tracing the same paths as the old ones.
"So, you are Kael after all?"
Her voice cracked halfway through the sentence.
Kael wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.
"No. I'm Solian,"
he said calmly.
She laughed. Softly at first. Then louder.
Then she doubled over, clutching her stomach.
"AHAHA—"
The sound held no joy. It was hollow, edged with disbelief.
"You're absolutely shameless,"
she said between laughs.
She kept laughing, the sound echoing through the forest, mixing with the wind and the settling snow.
"Why did I even believe you in the first place?"
She tore at her hair, fingers digging in.
For what felt like an eternity, she muttered to herself. The words came fractured and incoherent, slipping between first person and third, breaking apart mid-thought before latching onto something else entirely. Her hands twisted in her hair as she spoke, pacing a half-step back and forth without realizing it.
Then she stopped.
"He's dead because of me."
She brushed a few loose strands behind her ear.
Kael's eyes narrowed beneath the blindfold.
She was different now.
Whatever storm had been tearing through her moments ago had been forced aside. The grief, the mania, the noise, pressed down into something sharper. Controlled. Even if only briefly.
"I insist." Kael raised his hands slightly. "I'm Solian. Not Kael, or whoever you said."
His voice was calm and sincere.
She stared at him, expression unreadable.
Then she flicked a finger.
Kael's breath caught as an invisible force seized him and yanked him forward. The space between them collapsed in an instant. She reached out again.
Kael snapped his hand up.
A thunderclap ripped through the forest as Point Aegis met her strike. The impact shook the snow from nearby branches.
Her expression sharpened.
She thrust her finger forward once more. Kael mirrored the motion.
Snow exploded into the air as the two forces collided, pressure grinding against pressure.
'Disgusting.'
Kael struggled to keep pace as she increased the force, each blow heavier than the last.
'The mote she's using is simple,' he thought as he blocked another hit. 'But its effect is impressive.'
His jaw tightened.
'I want it.'
Her left hand held two fingers aligned, forcing Kael to stay within striking distance, while her right hand battered him with relentless blows.
Kael snapped his hand low, then to his chin, then to his stomach. Each movement reflected hers almost perfectly, every clash sending plumes of snow into the air.
'Head.'
Kael adjusted instinctively, already moving.
The woman's fingers snapped downward.
In that instant, the pressure around them vanished, collapsing inward and focusing entirely on Kael's hand. His arm was wrenched down by the force.
Her fingers blurred into a streak, then slowed, almost gentle, as they tapped against his chin.
Boom.
Kael's head whipped violently to the side. The trees behind him bent with the shear wind pressure of the strike. His bones and muscles groaned, fighting not to shatter.
Before his head fully snapped back, Kael swung.
The woman raised her arms just in time.
Another thunderclap tore through the forest.
She slid backward across the snow, carving dark marks into the ground as she was forced away from him.
"Guess you're not the Hidden Guardian without reason,"
Kael muttered, rubbing his jaw.
She didn't answer. She only raised her two aligned fingers again.
The pull came instantly.
Kael was dragged back into striking distance.
'I've got no counter for it.'
Point Aegis flared again.
"You have to understand," Kael said, too quickly. "I'm not Kael. I'm telling you."
"SHAMELESS!"
She brought her entire hand down.
The pressure around Kael's arm collapsed once more, condensing with terrifying precision. Her fingers tapped against him, light as a touch.
Crack.
Two ribs gave way at once.
Kael was launched backward. A tree exploded into splinters as his body tore through it, wood and snow erupting outward.
He didn't stop until he slammed hard into a fallen trunk.
The air was ripped from his lungs in a silent gasp as the world lurched and dimmed around him.
Huff.
Huff.
His breaths tore out of him, heavy and uneven, each one scraping against shattered ribs.
She walked toward him and stopped barely a meter away.
"I hate you."
Tears now dripping freely from her chin.
"Adam was the only blood relative I had left."
She dragged her sleeve across her eyes.
"And you killed him. Why?"
Her outline wavered in Kael's vision, swimming in and out as the pain finally caught up to him.
"I never wanted to kill him, Lauren…" Kael panted. "The King Wolf Tiger caught us off—"
His sentence died.
Lauren's fingers brushed lightly against his jaw.
"LIAR."
The world detonated.
An explosion of force tore through the forest. Skin split along Kael's cheek, peeling back to expose a clean row of teeth beneath. A wet, nauseating crunch followed as his jaw wrenched free of its socket.
Blood poured from his mouth in thick, choking streams, running down his chin and spilling through the torn flesh of his cheek as his body convulsed against the snow.
The only sound that escaped Kael's lips was a wet, gurgling rasp as he fought not to drown in his own blood.
She stepped closer and crouched in front of him, teeth clenched so tightly they trembled.
Her hands went through his pockets with rough precision until she reached his belt. She tore his knife free and turned it in her grip, inspecting it.
"Is this what you killed him with?"
She pressed the blade against his ribs and pushed slowly. The metal slid easy into flesh.
"Elara saw everything, you know."
A thick gurgle tore from Kael's throat as the knife pierced his lung, blood bubbling violently at his lips.
She pulled the blade free and drove it through his other cheek, forcing it out through the ragged hole torn in his face, watching the steel emerge slick and red on the other side.
Without grace, she pulled out the knife and pressed it against his throat.
"Burn slowly," she whispered. "Burn knowing no one will mourn you."
Tears streamed down her face, her teeth trembling on the edge of chattering.
She pushed the blade in.
Skin gave way, and then muscle.
WOOSH.
A violent surge of snow exploded around them, blasting outward in a white wave. The knife halted mid-cut.
"Stop."
The low voice came from behind her.
Lauren stiffened. Slowly, she rose and turned.
A winged figure stood unmoving a short distance away, a raven perched on his shoulder, watching with hollow eyes.
"Stay out of this, Torin."
Hatred burned in her gaze.
"Can't do that, Lauren."
Torin met her stare.
"HE NEEDS TO DIE!"
She screamed, pointing back at Kael's limp body.
Torin shook his head once, dismissive.
"He's a hired mercenary from Eireindaile. He's under my protection."
"You really think I'd care?"
She laughed, sharp and disbelieving. "You heard him yourself."
"I did," Torin replied as he stepped closer. "They were caught off guard by the King Wolf Tiger. He's innocent."
"Are you even listening to yourself, Torin?"
She wiped the blood from the blade with her sleeve.
Torin said nothing. He only watched her, his gaze colder than the snow beneath their feet.
Lauren shook her head and turned back toward Kael.
"Lauren."
Torin's voice cracked through the air.
She turned back toward him.
Eight black marble javelins hovered around Torin, suspended like miniature suns locked in a private orbit.
"What?" she asked, fingers aligning again. "You're going to kill me over him?"
"If I have to."
She tilted her head back, a hollow smile tugging at her lips.
"Can you?"
The world seemed to hold its breath.
Torin spread his wings.
A rank four aura surged outward, heavy and crushing, rolling across the clearing like a flood. Snow pressed flat. The air itself groaned under the weight.
Lauren stopped holding back.
Her own aura flared, raw and violent, slamming into Torin's head-on. Rank four met rank four, the collision sending ripples through the forest as the tension between them thickened.
"All of Eireindaile can burn in H—"
Her words cut off.
She looked down.
An arm poked through her chest, fragments of torn heart tangled between its fingers.
Her breath stopped instantly. She tried to turn, but her body refused to follow. She could not see who stood behind her.
Kael did.
He stood there like a corpse dragged upright. His jaw hung partially torn from his face, blood pouring freely, soaking into Lauren's coat as it ran down his chin and through the hole in his cheek.
"Kael, what are you doing?"
Torin asked, reaching out as if he might still stop this.
Kael ignored him.
He ripped his arm free, then drove it forward again, this time into Lauren's neck. His Red Will flooded into her body. At the same moment, the Titanwood Stalker detonated within his inner realm, and Obsidian Shard activated in tandem.
As his Will poured into her, Kael let his consciousness follow.
The forest shattered.
Reality peeled away, replaced by a white void veined with cracks so vast they seemed bottomless.
Lauren's inner realm.
Her remaining consciousness stood there, barely held together. The moment she heard footsteps, she turned.
Horror washed over her face.
"Wait—what are you doing here?"
She scrambled backward, hands slipping against nothing as she tried to put distance between them.
"I'm here to take your mote."
The words hit harder than any blow.
She couldn't answer. The thought alone was unthinkable. Absurd.
'I can't let him have my motes.'
It was the only thing left in her mind.
In that same moment, a metallic sphere formed in her hand. White Will seeped from her fingers as she drove them into it.
Kael dashed forward and caught her wrist, his grip ironclad. His Red Will flooded out, colliding with hers and forcing it to a halt.
She froze.
"Your Will…" Her voice trembled. "It's… red?"
Panic crept into her eyes. "Who are you?"
Behind her, her white river of Will coiled and twisted, but its flow was uneven now, unresponsive to her command.
"You're dying, Lauren. Give up,"
Kael suggested with a calm voice.
She tried to force her Will into the mote, to detonate it. But Kael's control was absolute. With the Obsidian Shard reinforcing him, she never stood a chance.
"No—please! STOP!"
Kael didn't answer.
He tore her Will free completely and drove his own into the sphere.
"STOP!"
she begged again.
Moments passed.
Her river of Will spilled from its path, leaking through the cracks in her soul, vanishing into nothing. Her resistance withered. Her eyes went distant.
Then the world went black.
Kael's consciousness stood alone in a dead inner realm.
He looked down at the sphere in his hand.
'So I was right after all?'
He dismissed the mote and let his consciousness return.
Back in the forest, Torin watched as Kael's arm slid free from Lauren's neck. Kael staggered once, then collapsed backward into the snow.
"Damn it."
Torin raised a hand, and two figures appeared beside him.
"Selene," he said sharply, "heal Kael. Everything you have. Make sure he survives."
Then he turned to the other.
"Malric. Guard the area. Make sure not a single Valthorne ever sees Lauren."
The snow continued to fall.