The Verdwood River Festival was supposed to be about thanking the water spirits. Really, it was about eating fried dough and hitting things with sticks.
I was seven years old. The clumsy toddler years were gone. My legs were long, my hands were steady, and the Hollow in my chest had settled into a low, quiet hum. It wasn't biting me anymore. It was just waiting.
It was a perfect summer day. The river smelled of wet stones and green weeds. Lanterns hung from the willow trees, swaying in the breeze. The whole village was out, and the noise was loud enough to rattle your teeth.
But Kaela Fireborn was not having fun.
"It's not fair," she growled, kicking a clump of grass. "It's totally rigged."
We were standing in the mud by the riverbank, watching the main game for the kids: The Splash-Battle.
The rules were simple. Two teams stood on floating logs in the shallow water. Each kid had a bucket or a scoop. The goal was to knock the wooden targets off the other team's log using only water.
The problem was size.
The other team was led by Jaron. He was eleven now, big and beefy, with arms like tree branches. He had a bucket the size of a barrel. When he threw water, it hit like a wave.
Kaela, Lysara, and I were on the "Small Kids" log. Kaela had a great arm, but she had a tiny wooden scoop. Her splashes hit the targets with a sad little slap, while Jaron was knocking our targets into the reeds.
"We're losing," Lysara said, looking at a small slate she'd brought along. She was wearing a waterproof tunic Miren had made for her. Her pointed ears twitched. "He has a bigger bucket. We cannot throw enough water to win."
"Shut up, Lysara," Kaela snapped, wringing out her ponytail. "I just need to throw harder."
"You can't," I said, watching Jaron scoop up half the river. "It's not about how hard you throw. It's about how the water moves. He has a flood. You have a splash. We need a stream."
Kaela glared at me. "Speak normal, Ren."
"We need a squirter," I said. "But a big one."
Kaela's eyes lit up. "Like... a spitter?"
"Like a dragon," I corrected. "But made of wood."
I looked toward the trees. There was a patch of bamboo growing near the mud. I knew how to fix this. I knew how to make things, break things, and solve things. That was my gift.
"Cover me," I said. "I need ten minutes."
"I'll buy you five," Kaela said grimly. She picked up her scoop and ran back onto the log, screaming a war cry that was way too scary for a water fight.
I grabbed Lysara. "Come on. I need your eyes."
We ran into the bamboo.
This was how we worked now. Kaela was the noise. Lysara was the precision. I was the one who put it all together.
I found a stalk of Iron-Bamboo. It was thick, green, and tough as rock.
"This one," I said.
I pulled a small saw from my belt. Toren had given it to me for my birthday, along with a long speech about being careful that I had mostly listened to.
I cut a piece about as long as my arm. It was hollow inside, but closed off at the ends by the natural knots in the wood.
"I need a pusher," I muttered.
I found a straight stick of hardwood. I wrapped the end in a strip of oiled leather I'd cut from my belt. It needed to fit tight inside the bamboo.
I jammed the stick into the bamboo tube. It was tight. Good.
"Lysara," I said. "I need you to make a hole. Right here." I pointed to the closed end of the bamboo. "Tiny. Like a needle."
Lysara frowned, looking at the wood. "I don't have a drill."
"Use the Seam," I said. "Focus the magic into a point. Spin it."
She hesitated. Using magic was against the rules for kids. But she hated not being able to solve a puzzle. She narrowed her violet eyes.
I watched the Silver Seam gather around her finger. She pressed it against the bamboo.
Zzzzt.
A tiny wisp of smoke curled up. A perfect, tiny hole appeared in the center of the wood.
"Perfect," I grinned.
I ran to the river. I stuck the tip underwater. I pulled back on the stick handle.
The suction worked. Water rushed into the tube, filling it up.
I aimed at a big leaf ten feet away. I shoved the handle forward with all my strength.
FSSSSHHHHT.
A jet of water shot out of the tiny hole. It was thin, hard, and fast. It punched a hole straight through the leaf.
"Whoa," Lysara whispered. "It pushes so hard."
"Because the hole is small," I said. "The water has to squeeze to get out, so it goes fast."
We ran back to the fight.
It was bad. Kaela was soaked, shivering, and mad. Jaron was laughing, holding his huge bucket over his head for the final splash.
"Hey!" I shouted. "Kaela! Catch!"
I tossed her the bamboo tube.
Kaela caught it. She looked at it, confused. "A stick? You brought me a stick?"
"Dip the tip!" I yelled. "Pull the handle! Then push!"
Kaela didn't ask questions. She trusted me.
She dipped the bamboo. She pulled the handle. The tube filled.
Jaron laughed. "Look at the baby! He brought a flute!"
He swung his bucket back.
Kaela aimed. She didn't know about water flow, but she knew how to aim. She pointed the bamboo right at Jaron's face.
She slammed the handle forward.
FSSSSHHHHT.
The water jet crossed the gap between the logs in a blink. It hit Jaron right in the open mouth.
GLURG!
Jaron choked. The force of the water snapped his head back. He flailed, slipped on the wet log, and fell backward into the river with a huge splash.
The crowd on the bank went silent. Then they cheered.
Kaela stared at the bamboo tube in her hands. She looked at me. Her grin was scary.
"Reload!" she screamed.
The next five minutes were a mess.
It wasn't a fair fight. It was a slaughter. Kaela sniped the targets off the other team's log one by one. Zip. Bam. Zip. Bam.
Lysara and I stood on the bank, refilling spare tubes I had cut. We were a machine.
"Aim higher," Lysara called out. "The water drops when it goes far."
"Seal is holding," I said, checking the leather.
Jaron's team was falling apart. They couldn't get close enough to use their buckets. Every time they stood up, Kaela blasted them.
We won. We crushed them.
Kaela stood on the log, winner, holding the Bamboo Cannon over her head. Jaron dragged himself out of the mud, coughing up river water, looking sad.
"We did it!" Kaela yelled, jumping off the log and running toward us. "Ren! Did you see that? I got him right in the nose!"
"I saw," I laughed. "Better weapon."
She hugged me, getting me soaking wet. Then she looked at the cannon.
"Can it go harder?" she asked. The greedy look of a warrior.
I hesitated. "The bamboo is strong, but if you push too hard..."
"Just one more," she begged. "I want to hit the bell on the other side of the river."
The bell was far. Fifty feet away.
"We'd need more push," I muttered. "The wood would split."
I looked at the Silver Seam. I could do it. If I poured a little of my own mana into the bamboo, I could make the fibers hard as iron.
It was stupid. It was showing off.
I did it anyway.
I took the tube. I closed my eyes. I pushed mana from the Hollow into the wood. The bamboo glowed faintly silver for a second, the grain tightening up.
"Try now," I said, handing it back. "But be careful."
Kaela grabbed it. She filled it. She aimed at the bell.
She slammed the handle with everything she had.
The water tried to get out. But the hole was too small for how fast she was pushing. The water had nowhere to go. The pressure built up instantly.
The wood couldn't hold it.
CRACK-BOOM.
The bamboo didn't just split; it blew up. The water exploded outward, shattering the wood into sharp splinters.
"Ahh!" Kaela dropped the pieces, holding her hand.
"Kaela!" I ran forward.
Her hand was red, stinging from the slap of the water and the wood, but she wasn't bleeding. The explosion had gone out, not in.
But the sound... the sound had been like thunder.
The festival went quiet.
I froze. I felt a shadow fall over us.
I looked up.
Toren was standing there.
He wasn't looking at Kaela. He wasn't looking at the river. He was looking at the shattered pieces of bamboo on the ground. He was looking at the way the wood had exploded outward, like something had pushed it from inside.
He saw the black scorch marks where my mana had burned the wood.
He looked at me.
His face wasn't angry. It was something worse. It was sure.
"Ren," Toren said. His voice was low, but I heard it over the crowd. "Kaela. Lysara."
We stood in a line, three guilty soldiers.
"Home. Now."
We walked back to my house in silence. Kaela rubbed her hand. Lysara looked at her feet. I looked at Toren's back.
I had messed up. I had pushed too hard. I had let the curiosity take over the child.
When we got to the house, Miren was waiting. She saw Toren's face and went pale.
"Is everyone hurt?" she asked.
"No," Toren said. He put the broken bamboo pieces on the table.
"Ren built this," Toren said. "It shot water across the river. And then he filled it with mana to make it harder."
Miren looked at the wood. She looked at me.
"Ren..."
"It was just a toy," I whispered.
"It was a weapon," Toren said. He turned to me. He knelt down so he was eye-level.
I waited for the yelling. For him to tell me I was a monster.
But Toren didn't yell. He reached out and took my hands. He looked at my fingers—small, pale, but capable of building things that blew up.
"You have a gift," Toren said. "You see things. You understand how the world fits together."
I nodded, throat tight.
"And you have power," he added, looking at the faint silver light under my skin. "But power without rules is just a fire waiting to happen."
He stood up. He looked at Kaela and Lysara.
"You three," he said. "You work well together. The fighter. The thinker. And you..."
He looked back at me, struggling to find the word. He didn't say "builder." He didn't say "monster."
"The spark," he said finally. "The one who starts the fire."
He walked to the corner of the room. He picked up a wooden practice sword. He tossed it to me.
I caught it. It was heavy.
"If you're going to build weapons," Toren said, "you're going to learn how to use them. And you're going to learn respect for what they do."
"What does that mean?" Kaela asked, eyeing the sword.
"It means," Toren said, a small, hard smile touching his lips, "that starting tomorrow, you aren't playing in the woods anymore."
He pointed at the hill above the village.
"Master Dren runs the training ground. Tomorrow when the sun comes up. All three of you."
I looked at the sword in my hand. I looked at Kaela, who was grinning even though her hand hurt. I looked at Lysara, who looked scared but interested.
Training.
It wasn't a punishment. It was a start. Toren wasn't afraid of me anymore. He was accepting me.
"Yes, sir," I said.
The bamboo cannon was broken. But the team... the team was just getting started.