Chapter Two: The Compass
A boot scraped gravel.
Zack's head snapped up. His legs still burned from the kata. Sweat cooled on his neck in the evening air, and the willow's green mist drifted above him, untouched and uncaring.
Chief Burrel stood six paces away, arms folded across a chest built from decades of war and bad decisions. His Body Path strength had long since settled into something permanent. Dense. Immovable. A pale scar cut across his temple, old and white, the kind that came from Aether-fed steel.
Fantastic. The one man in the village who moves like a ghost, and he picks now to show up. While I'm sitting in the dirt looking like a sad, sweaty potato.
Burrel's gaze swept over him. Not quick. Thorough. The kind of look that weighed bone and breath and found both lacking.
"Stolen forms make a dangerous dance. You learn the step, not the music. When the rhythm changes, you fall."
"I have no music to learn."
"Everyone has a rhythm." Burrel's voice ground low, stone on stone. "The test finds your instrument. It doesn't teach you to play. Tomorrow."
"I know."
"You're afraid."
Zack opened his mouth. Closed it. Denial rotted and died under that stare. The old soldier didn't blink. He didn't need to.
Yes. I'm terrified. Happy?
"Fear's a compass." Burrel unfolded his arms and let them hang at his sides, loose and deliberate. "It points to what you value. Walk toward it, not away."
He turned his attention to the village green, where Penn and Aron's wooden swords still clacked in the fading light.
"People think Paths are about the Aether in your core. They're wrong. Paths are about the will in your heart." He paused. The silence had weight. "The crystal shows you a door. You choose to walk through it. Or break it down."
His dark eyes found Zack again.
"A man with a lake of Aether who chooses nothing is stagnant water. A man with a hollow core who chooses his path is a hammer. Remember that. No matter what the crystal says."
A hammer. Sure. A hammer without a head, a handle, or anyone willing to hold it. But I appreciate the vote of confidence, Chief.
Burrel gave a final, measuring look. The kind of look a man gives a fence post before deciding whether it can hold weight. Then he turned and walked into the trees without a sound. Just gone. As if the forest had opened a door and closed it behind him.
Zack sat alone under the willow.
Choice.
The word was dry in his mouth. He pressed his palm against the bark. Rough. Cool. The Aether mist curled overhead, patient and indifferent.
He pulled his hand back. Empty.
Well. No point crying about it. It's not the end of the world.
He stood up, brushed the dirt from his pants, and walked home.
The thought followed him the entire way: What choice does a cup with a hole in the bottom have?
Supper choked the kitchen.
His father chewed each bite with the slow, mechanical precision of a man solving a problem he couldn't fix. His eyes tracked the wood grain of the table. Dirt lived permanently under his nails, packed deep and dark. The Blight in the south field had taken another row this week. Everyone knew.
His mother sat with mending in her lap. Needle resting between her fingers. Thread slack. Eyes fixed on the cloth but focused somewhere far past it.
Mira watched Zack. Looked away when he caught her. Looked back.
She's doing the thing. The worried-sister-who-won't-admit-she's-worried thing. She's been doing it all week. At this rate she'll strain something in her neck.
His father cleared his throat. "It's a formality. Every generation worries." He set his spoon down with careful precision. "You're our son. You'll have Body Path. A trickle is enough. We always make do."
Zack nodded.
His mother's lips pressed thin. She reached for her needle, and it slipped. Metal clicked against the floor. Small sound. Loud room.
Nobody moved for a full second.
Mira shoved a piece of potato across her plate. "He's stronger than he looks."
"Exactly." Relief flashed across his father's face. Quick and desperate, there and gone. The meal ended soon after. Plates cleared without conversation. No one lingered.
They know. They all know. They're performing a play called 'Everything Is Fine' and the script is terrible, but they're committed to the bit.
The loft was dark and cold. Straw prickled through Zack's thin blanket. The beams groaned as the house settled into night, and below, his parents' voices murmured too low to catch words but loud enough to carry the shape of worry.
Mira climbed up. Poked him between the shoulder blades. Hard.
"You're thinking loud enough to bring the roof down."
"Go to sleep."
She shifted closer, knees drawn up, her small frame a knot of stubborn energy even at rest. The same stubbornness that made her haul double water loads and volunteer for extra kneading shifts this week. Her wrists were still wrapped from where she'd strained them overdoing it.
She's been pushing herself harder since the Blight took those rows. Like if she works enough for two, nobody will notice one of us is broken.
"You'll be fine. You know that, right?"
He stared at the dark ceiling.
"You're too stubborn to be empty." Her whisper cut through the silence. "If that crystal has any sense, it'll glow just to spite us all."
Something escaped his chest. Not a laugh. An acknowledgment. The sound of pressure finding a crack.
"Good." She rolled onto her side. "Don't get sentimental."
Her breathing slowed into sleep within minutes. She had that gift. The ability to decide a thing was settled and then act on the decision immediately. Zack envied that more than any Aether affinity.
He stayed awake.
The house hummed. He noticed it only in this quiet. Aether moved. The currents slid through the walls in slow, deliberate patterns. They pooled in the room's corners. They gathered near the window frame and eddied around the hearth chimney where residual heat gave them something to cling to.
They thinned near his pallet. Bent around the space he occupied. Did not touch him.
Every night. Same show. The energy of the entire world flowing through this house, through my sister, through the walls themselves. And I'm the dead spot in the current. The one place it refuses to go.
He closed his eyes. The silent hum continued. Sleep came in fragments, shallow and restless, full of grey light and cold stone.
Dawn hit sharp and bright.
The village green looked wrong. A wooden platform stood at its center, planks pale and raw. The elders sat in a stiff row behind it. Every soul in Zoe crowded close, and the air carried that particular tension of a community watching its future get measured and sorted.
The Guildsman stood beside the platform. His green robes hung loose on a narrow frame. He yawned into his hand and tapped the lacquered box at his feet with a scuffed boot.
The man who decides our lives looks like he'd rather be napping. Inspiring.
One by one, the children stepped forward.
Lydia went first. Her hand met the crystal. Blue light bloomed, deep and swirling. Gasps split the air. Her mother cried out.
"High to medium affinity. Soul Path."
Cheers erupted. Someone lifted Lydia off her feet. This was the best result Zoe had seen in a generation. Only twelve people in the village's entire history had hit that mark.
Great. Wonderful. The bar has been set at 'historic achievement.' No pressure.
Kelan followed. The crystal pulsed a steady, earthy umber. He grinned and flexed.
"Medium to low affinity. Body Path."
More cheers, with less awe. Standard result. The average expectation for a village like Zoe.
Each child stepped down with a road beneath their feet. A name. A future. Colors bloomed in the crystal; blue, copper, the muted silver of Hybrid affinity. Parents wept. Friends shouted. The green filled with the noise of lives being handed out.
Zack waited. The sun climbed. Shadows shrank.
Twelve kids tested. Twelve futures delivered. My turn is coming, and my stomach is doing something creative with this morning's porridge.
When his name came, the sound reached him from a distance. An echo carried across a valley that existed only inside his own skull.
"Zack of Zoe."
He stepped forward. The crowd pressed in. Faces blurred into a wall of expectation. He caught Joren's grin, a bright slash of teeth and malice. His mother's hands were fists in her shawl. His father stood rigid, jaw locked. Chief Burrel watched from the edge, arms folded. A statue.
The Guildsman gestured without looking up.
"Hand on the focus. Do not channel. Stand still."
Zack placed his palm against the crystal.
Smooth. Cold. A perfect, dead thing against his skin.
He breathed in. Breathed out. Silenced the plea climbing his throat.
Be anything. Anything at all. I'm not picky. Give me the weakest trickle of Body Path. Give me Hybrid. Give me something so faint they have to squint. I don't care. Just don't stay dark.
The crystal answered.