In a forgotten village on the edge of nowhere, a boy named Jio grows up ignored by the world. Quiet, unimportant, barely surviving — he’s the kind of kid no one would remember if he disappeared.
But kindness has a strange way of shaping things.

When Jio helps a stranger left to die at the edge of the desert, he doesn’t expect anything to change. He just does it because it feels right.
That stranger isn’t quite who she seems, and Jio isn’t just some quiet beggar boy.
Not really.

But for now, this is just a story about surviving, about learning to care in a place where no one teaches you how, and about how small acts of kindness can begin to shift the world — even before the world notices.

Jio's arms wrapped around Havella's waist, his expression as blank and unreadable as ever — not out of coldness, but something deeper, harder to place. Havella, however, stiffened slightly at the contact. Her cheeks flushed red under the bruises and dirt.


"I'm not," Jio replied flatly, looking straight ahead.


Havella gritted her teeth and ignored the strange churn in her chest. Her fingers etched a swift shape in the air, and the air shimmered — distorting like a mirage. A sudden force clutched them, a grip between dimensions, and before Jio could even ask, they were gone from the cliff's edge… and standing, safely, across.


She exhaled sharply. Her legs buckled slightly. "That was… harder than I thought."


"Yeah," she muttered. "Turns out this 'magic' or whatever it is… I can steal more than just things. Movement, weight, even distance. I stole the fall. Neat, right?"


She gave a crooked smile. "I told you. I call it steal. You name yours bright call, remember? So maybe... we're a weird pair."


As they resumed their journey, the terrain shifted. The Wastes gave way to jagged rocks and dry winds — dead lands where fortresses stood like old teeth in a broken jaw. One loomed ahead now, blackened with soot and iron gates chained shut.


Havella nodded. "Yeah. It guards the Veil. There's only a few places to cross between Realms, and this one's been around since before… well, before anyone remembers."


"But you said you didn't know anything about the Realms," Jio said plainly.


Havella clicked her tongue. "Tch. Maybe I lied."


She turned away. "Because if I told you everything, you'd start asking things I don't want to answer yet."


Jio stared at her for a moment, then looked away without a word.


"…Not gonna ask?" she added, glancing back.


She narrowed her eyes, but that strange heat in her chest twisted again. This time it wasn't embarrassment.


As the wind howled outside the fortress walls, a soft ringing began to echo — faint, distant, like a bell struck under water. And beyond the iron gates, past the dying land and dusted ruins…


Another movement toward her frozen law.


Her breath crystallized the air as she rose from her th


Chapter 10 - -10