The silence that lingered after the burial was louder than the weeping. Gaelus' grave—shallow, rough, and hurried—rested in the outskirts of Asael's Vigil, beneath the watchful crystal eyes of the Diviner's Lens. The crystalline orb shimmered faintly above, ever-watchful, as if judging the tears shed and those withheld.
Kael stood there long after the others had left.
The sky above Asael's Vigil was a curtain of dusk hues, with amethyst and gold bleeding into each other as the sun reluctantly descended beyond the distant ridge. The boy's knuckles were white against the shaft of the crude spade still planted in the earth beside his father's resting place.
He whispered, but not to the wind. Not even to the dead.
"To bury you in this place… beneath these eyes… it's a curse, not a kindness."
The amethyst-laced houses of the village, once a symbol of serenity, now felt hollow. The crystal embellishments reflected distorted versions of Kael's scowling face whenever he passed them.
Asael's Vigil was silent that evening. People stayed indoors, muttering prayers to the Forgotten God, or pretending that mourning a cursed knight and his son was no business of theirs.
Except one.
A knock—gentle, hesitant.
Kael blinked from his seat beside the hearth, eyes rimmed red, but dry.
"Come in."
The door creaked open to reveal her.
Selene.
The girl with dawn-touched hair, skin pale as the moonlight, and a gaze that never seemed to avert itself. She didn't carry pity. She carried understanding.
"I brought soup," she said.
"I'm not hungry."
"I brought it anyway."
She placed the small, carved bowl on the table. The scent of herbs and root vegetables stirred something feral in Kael's stomach, but he ignored it.
"Is it true?" she asked after a moment, voice barely above a breath. "They say your father killed three mages from Azkaris before he fell."
Kael said nothing.
"They also say he refused to beg."
"That's not a story," Kael muttered. "It's just who he was."
Selene knelt across from him. "And who will you be, Kael?"
The fire flickered in his eyes, catching a strange glint.
"Someone worth fearing."
—
That night, Kael didn't sleep.
He wandered the paths near the edge of the forest, where the light of the Diviner's Lens grew faint, and the shadows thickened.
He opened the old satchel his father left him. Inside were rations, a torn map, a broken crystal pendant… and a scroll, sealed in wax shaped like a seven-pointed eye.
He cracked it open.
Blood magic is sacrifice. Blood magic is memory. It obeys no element but pain and purpose.
Kael touched his chest. He had both.
He pricked his finger with a shard of the pendant, letting blood drip onto the scroll.
The runes flared red.
Something moved behind the trees.
—
In the days that followed, Kael changed.
He no longer played with the other children. He trained alone.
He no longer cried in public. He bled in private.
Selene noticed first.
His eyes looked distant, even when speaking to her. He smiled when others suffered minor misfortunes, and he walked with a strange confidence—shoulders drawn back, chest lifted, as if daring someone to strike.
One evening, she followed him.
She watched from the trees as Kael carved runes into the earth with a bone-dagger and recited incantations in a language she didn't recognize. His voice was harsh, guttural… older than it had any right to be.
Then he raised his hand. Blood streamed from his palm, floating in the air like silk thread.
Selene's heart pounded.
Kael was weaving blood into sigils.
He didn't need to say it.
He was becoming something dangerous.
—
The Council of Vigilant Flame summoned him not long after.
Seven elders. All old knights, some with fading tattoos of the Forgotten God on their arms. The council chamber smelled of smoke and sanctity.
"You are the son of Gaelus," one began.
Kael nodded. "You know this."
"You have begun practicing forbidden magic."
Kael did not deny it.
"Why?" asked another.
"To defend myself. To destroy what he could not."
There was silence.
"You will stop."
"No."
They blinked.
Kael's voice was calm. Deadly.
"I won't stop, because I'm the only one here who sees clearly. The knights bow to laws that do not protect them. The mages of Azkaris whisper in our minds even now. You want to survive this era?"
He raised a bloodstained scroll.
"Then stop pretending honor will shield us."
"Blasphemy," muttered an elder.
"Reality," Kael countered.
They didn't imprison him. They feared what it would cost.
He left the chamber untouched.
But not unmarked.
—
Selene confronted him that night.
"You're spiraling."
"I'm ascending."
"You're losing yourself."
"I'm becoming who I was meant to be."
She slapped him.
He didn't react.
"Say something," she pleaded.
He turned.
"I want to protect you. That's all."
"And what happens when you can't tell if I'm real?"
He paused.
She stepped back.
And he let her go.
—
The next morning, the Diviner's Lens cracked.
A sign of coming calamity.
Or the price of a boy learning how to bleed the world dry.