Kael stood in silence, his palm still tingling,the altar's glow had faded,yet something inside him — deep, beneath flesh and bone — still burned.
His breathing slowed. He pressed a hand to his chest.
The warmth was still there. Faint, pulsing.
Not magic he understood… but something older.
He looked around.
The chamber was quiet now. The beast was gone, dissolved into ash and shadow. Its voice — the whispers, the doubt — had gone with it.
But the memory it had fed on still clung to him.
His father's hand, limp in the fire.
His mother's scream.
The emptiness.
Kael closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe through it.
"You survived," he muttered to himself. "You didn't break."
Then he turned toward the narrow tunnel behind the altar.
A faint breeze touched his cheek.
A way out.
---
The passage sloped upward, slick and narrow.
Each step away from the altar felt heavier than the last — like leaving behind a part of himself. His knees ached. His arms stung. But he didn't stop.
Minutes stretched into hours, or maybe just moments distorted by pain.
Then… light.
A soft flicker.
He emerged into a broader tunnel, one he recognized.
A piece of the ruins they hadn't explored.
And voices — distant, urgent.
"Kael! Can you hear us?!"
Naya.
He blinked against the dim light and stepped forward.
---
They found him just outside the stone arch, breath catching in their throats. Naya ran ahead, her cloak flying behind her.
"Kael!"
Her relief slipped into a scolding frown the moment she saw the blood staining his tunic.
"You're bleeding!"
He shook his head slowly. "Not mine."
She stopped.
Their eyes locked.
Something in his face was different. Not fear. Not pain.
Quiet… but deeper.
Like he'd been standing on the edge of a cliff inside himself and returned with the wind still in his lungs.
Master Lioren stepped forward next, brows furrowed.
Kael looked at him. For a breath, Lioren held his gaze — not stern, not soft, just searching.
Then the master nodded, just once.
"Let's return," he said. "This part of the ruins is unstable."
Kael nodded.
But as they turned back, he felt the warmth in his chest again — and the quiet murmur of something still awakening.
---
Later that night, while others slept in their tents.
Kael sat alone outside the firelight, eyes on the stars.
His hand brushed the spot on his chest where the warmth pulsed.
He didn't know what had changed.
But he felt it.
The memory the altar had taken wasn't gone — just... deeper. As though the earth had swallowed it.
And now, something was moving inside him, a power he doesn't understand yet.
Not yet, he thought.
But one day… they'll all see.