Even years later, after the screaming faded and the village was rebuilt, Ren's body still remembered how to move before his mind could catch up.
Run. Dodge. Strike.
Ren's breath came too fast. The stick snapped through the air in a wide, ugly arc—too fast, too high.
He wasn't practicing forms. Not really.
In his head, claws raked stone. Teeth clicked. He saw it again—the corridor, the smoke, Eldric's outstretched arms—and rats pouring in like the world had opened its mouth.
Low. Fast.
Every time he lifted the stick, he was back there. Shadow-fighting monsters that weren't real, because his body didn't believe peace lasted.
Ren reacted without thinking, jerking the stick down in a panicked sweep. The wood bit into the grass hard enough to jar his wrists.
He froze, hunched, chest tight. Birds scattered from the tree above him.
It wasn't real. But his body didn't know that.
"Stop," he muttered.
His voice cracked. Anger flashed hot behind his eyes—not at the rats. At himself. At the way his hands still shook like they had back then.
"Focus."
He forced himself upright, dragging in air until it scraped his throat.
Again. Slower this time.
Ren set his feet carefully, knees bent, shoulders loose—the way he'd forced himself to learn after too many mistakes. He inhaled, counted it out, and moved.
The stick followed cleaner lines now. Measured strikes. Careful spacing.
When the rats came in his mind, he didn't rush them.
He waited.
One lunged. Ren stepped aside and brought the stick down where its spine would have been. The motion landed clean.
His hands still trembled.
A second rat darted in.
Ren's shoulder twitched—old panic trying to take over. He over-swung. The stick cut empty air. He stumbled, caught himself, and for a heartbeat his vision blurred with smoke.
"Damn it!"
He snapped the stick back into guard, breath ragged. The hillside and the great tree at its peak blurred, then steadied as he forced his focus back.
Again.
He moved through the pattern.
Step. Angle. Strike. Withdraw.
Inside his head, the thought turned cold and simple.
If they swarm, you don't let them. If you freeze again, you die.
By the time he stopped, his arms burned and his fingers were numb.
Ren leaned forward and slid the stick into the notch on the old fence post beside the tree—a slot he'd carved himself over years, worn smooth where the stick always rested.
He dragged in air, shoulders rising and falling hard.
He stared at his knuckles.
No sparks. No flicker. No sign the nature inside him existed at all.
A bitter laugh tried to rise and died in his throat.
How many times? How many nights had he stood here with dirt under his nails and the same empty hands?
He'd read enough to know what should have happened by now. By fourteen or fifteen, you were supposed to feel something—a pull, warmth, a crackle.
A sign.
Ren had felt nothing. Just emptiness. No pull. No heat. Where everyone else swore power waited.
Footsteps crunched behind him.
Small. Quick. Too light to be Tarin.
"Ren!"
He turned.
Lina was halfway up the hill, little legs pumping, hair coming loose from its tie. She skidded to a stop a few paces away, hands on her knees, grinning like the climb hadn't bothered her at all.
"Dinner's ready," she said proudly. "Elda said to get you."
Ren frowned. "You ran all the way up here?"
She nodded, then winced. "My legs hurt."
He didn't hesitate. Ren crouched and turned his back.
"Come on."
She laughed as he lifted her, arms slipping easily around his neck. She was warm and light, smelling faintly of soap and grass.
"You're strong," Lina said. "Like a hero."
The word hit him wrong.
Like a jab.
Hero.
Ren's step faltered.
A hero didn't freeze in smoke. A hero didn't watch a hand reach out and do nothing.
He wasn't a hero.
If anything, he was the reason heroes showed up too late.
His throat tightened. He swallowed it down and started down the hill, jaw set.
The countryside stretched out ahead of them—fields rolling under the fading light, the village quiet and whole.
No smoke. No screams. Nothing moving at all.
That peace felt like a lie. Or worse—a pause the world could steal again whenever it wanted.
Lina kicked her feet lightly as he walked.
"Tarin says you're gonna leave."
Ren slowed. "Maybe."
Her legs went still. Her fingers tightened in his shirt, and when she leaned forward her voice changed—smaller, careful.
"I hear the others talking," she said. "About a trial."
Ren didn't answer right away. The word settled heavy in his chest.
"What is that?" she asked.
He hesitated. "It's… a test. For the academy."
Lina frowned, staring past him at the fields below.
"They say if you go, you won't come back."
Ren stopped. He shifted his grip so she felt steady, then turned his head just enough for her to hear him clearly.
His mouth went dry.
He wanted to say yes. He wanted to say he'd be fine. He wanted to be the kind of person who didn't have to fight doubt every time he spoke.
"I'll come back," he said anyway.
Then, before doubt could steal it—
"I promise."
The words felt heavy once they left him, doubt pressing in behind them.
Lina studied him for a long second. Then she smiled, slow and certain, and rested her chin on his shoulder.
"I believe you," she said. "Big brother Ren."
The words weighed more than the promise.
Ren kept walking.
But the promise stayed in his chest like something that could crush him if he failed.
Dinner was already laid out when they returned. Bowls scraped softly as people sat. Someone tried to start a conversation; it fizzled out.
Ren set Lina down and took his place near the end of the table. He'd barely lifted his spoon when voices began to stir.
"The academy trials are next month," someone muttered.
A chair scraped.
"So he's really going," another voice said.
Silence stretched.
One of the older boys snorted. "It's suicide."
"Don't," someone snapped.
"But it is," he shot back. "They take kids like us and see who breaks first."
Another leaned forward, voice low. "You remember Kellan? And Mira? They went two years ago. Never came back. Not a letter. Nothing."
Heads dipped. Someone's spoon stopped mid-air.
"That's enough," Elda said sharply from near the cooking pot.
Lina frowned, looking between them. "But Ren said he'd come back."
Heads turned.
"He's strong," she added, stubborn now. "I know he is."
Ren's chest tightened painfully.
Tarin didn't look at him. He sat with his elbows on the table, shoulders like stone, gaze fixed on his bowl.
"Strength isn't enough," Tarin said.
Lina's fingers tightened around her spoon.
The words landed like a shove.
Ren's spoon paused halfway to his mouth.
Something in him snapped hot.
"Then what is?" Ren asked, sharper than he meant.
Tarin's jaw tightened. His eyes finally lifted—and there was something there Ren didn't see often.
Not anger. Not contempt.
Fear, buried under frustration.
"The world doesn't care what you want," Tarin said quietly. "The academy doesn't care how hard you swing that stick. They'll throw you in with kids who can light the air on fire and split stone like it's bread."
Ren's throat tightened.
He wanted to argue. He wanted to say he had to go.
But his doubt was already saying it for Tarin.
What if he's right? What if this is just another dream I'm too small to reach?
Ren set his spoon down. He couldn't eat.
He stood without asking to be excused.
Outside, the air was cooler.
The grave plot sat just beyond the fence—small, uneven stones worn smooth by weather and hands that came back too often.
Some people wanted to forget. Some wanted to honor.
So the graves sat close enough to visit—far enough to ignore.
Ren knelt.
His knees hit the dirt hard enough to hurt.
He pressed his palms into the earth. The ground felt too solid, too real, like it didn't care either.
The carved names swam in his vision—Eldric's among them.
A caretaker who should have lived. A man who stood between children and teeth.
Ren's breath shook.
"I froze," he whispered.
The words scraped his throat raw.
"I didn't move."
"Just stood there."
The memory surged back—the wet sound, Eldric still reaching for the kids even as he fell.
Ren's nails dug into the dirt.
Rage came first. Then shame. Then fear.
What if he froze again? What if next time there was no blue lightning through the roof?
Ren bowed his head until his forehead touched the ground.
"I won't," he said, voice breaking. "I won't freeze again."
The promise tasted bitter.
"I don't care how much it hurts."
He stayed there longer than he meant to. His legs went numb. His hands went cold.
He didn't stand until the shaking slowed, until the grief dulled into something harder.
Resolve.
When he finally rose, doubt still gnawed at his chest. It always would.
But now it had something to fight against.
Elda stood near the fence.
She hadn't followed him. Hadn't intruded.
She simply watched—arms folded, expression unreadable.
Like she already knew words wouldn't reach him right now.
When Ren noticed her, she gave a single, almost imperceptible nod.
Not comfort. Not pity.
Permission.
Ren walked past her without speaking. Back up the hill. Back to the tree.
Because running from it had never fixed anything.
The hill was quiet again.
Ren sat beneath the broad tree at its peak, back pressed to the rough bark, knees drawn close as the last of the light bled from gold into gray.
The stick rested in its fence-slot beside him, exactly where it always went.
A book lay open in his lap.
Its pages were worn thin, corners softened by years of use. Notes crowded the margins—cramped handwriting, small diagrams traced and retraced until the ink faded.
The page read:
Meridians: internal channels through which mana flows.
Projection: requires alignment, control, and release.
Ren traced one diagram with his finger, following the marked paths through the body.
He knew this. He had always known this.
It didn't matter, though, if he couldn't bring it out when it counted.
He turned the page.
Blockage may occur due to imbalance, trauma, or incomplete awakening.
His jaw tightened.
He read it twice. Then a third time—slower—not because it made sense, but because it refused to leave him alone.
It didn't.
The word trauma pulled blue light into his mind.
A calm voice. A man who could breathe in the middle of chaos like the world could wait for him.
Ren shut his eyes hard.
"Focus," he murmured.
The wind stirred the leaves above him, steady and quiet. The countryside below lay peaceful and unaware.
Somewhere in the orphanage, Lina was already asleep, dreaming about things that didn't bite.
Big brother Ren.
The words made something inside his chest ache.
Ren's fingers tightened on the page.
He didn't have the right to be her hero. Not yet.
The book shifted in his hands. He blinked as his eyes grew heavy.
He forced himself to read another line. Then another.
The words blurred together, losing shape and meaning until his head finally tipped forward.
Sleep claimed him.
He didn't know how long he'd been out.
The smell came first—smoke. Sharp. Wrong.
Ren's eyes snapped open.
For a heartbeat, he didn't understand what he was seeing—only that something was burning.
Smoke curled up from the ground a foot from his hand, beside the fence post.
"No—"
Ren scrambled backward, heart slamming, eyes locking onto the blackened patch near his hand.
Fire.
Too close. Too close to the tree.
Panic surged.
He lunged forward, stamping at the ground, grinding his heel into the scorched grass again and again until the faint glow died and the smoke thinned.
"Stop—stop—"
He dropped to his knees, breath ragged, palms shaking against the earth.
He pressed his hands flat, daring it to burn again.
Nothing happened.
Ren stared at his fingers.
Normal. No heat. No light. No sensation at all.
"How…" His voice wavered. "How did that happen?"
He clenched his fist.
Nothing.
He opened his hand again, staring at it like it might betray him.
Ren looked around wildly, half-expecting someone to be standing there, watching.
The hill was empty.
The tree loomed above him, untouched. Cool. Unburned.
Only the grass had burned.
Small. Real.
Ren sat back hard, lungs aching as his breath slowed.
Confusion settled heavier than fear.
He hadn't felt anything. No gathering. No release. No control.
It hadn't come from him—at least, he hadn't felt it.
It hadn't followed any rule he knew.
Ren picked up the book with unsteady hands and stared down at the neat certainty of ink and lines.
They didn't explain this.
The hill felt colder now. Different.
Ren stood, shoving the book under his arm and grabbing the stick from its slot.
He didn't look back at the scorched patch as he walked toward the orphanage.
But the thought followed him anyway.
Not triumph. Not relief.
Just the unsettling sense that something had been listening.