The dawn found Kael already awake, staring at the pale flicker of a single candle in his quarters. The walls were silent, but he sensed watchers upon them—threaded through the stonework, breathing with the night. They weren't visible yet, but they were there.
Tenebris coiled behind his ribs, restless. It had begun to stir whenever he approached anything Veilbound—sigil stones, runic walls, even Eline's discarded scarf. Not out of pain, but warning. A tremor of warning, and something deeper.
The watchers were pushing him—and he would no longer stand still.
By midday, the storms of day had broken over the compound. Distant thunder rolled as Kael stepped into the scrying wing, ostensibly to review mission sketches. Instead, he watched the watchers.
Behind tinted veilscreens, two advisors—Handler Vess and Aurell—studied images flickering on shadowglass. Momentary glimpses: Kael in the archive, Kael sparring, Kael wandering the northern hall. Their eyes followed him in stillness.
They didn't know he watched them.
He withdrew.
But as he did, Tenebris gnawed at his awareness—reminding him it was watching, too.
That afternoon, Kael trained alone in the eastern yard. The rain had washed the ground clean. No one else was present. He drew sigil stones in the dirt, tracing their lines with his practice blade, testing his bond to the shapes.
Each time his blade crossed a line, a flicker shot through him: a sting in muscle, a whisper of memory, a bolt of energy that left him shaking.
Tenebris hissed low in his mind: "They mark me… mark us."
On the fourth stone—Heartstone—a hot rumble rolled through the yard. Kael froze as shards of gravel quivered. The rune glowed beneath his blade. He dropped it.
The watchers emerged from doorways at the periphery; their hands never left their sashes.
Ser Whitmer stepped forward. "Draw back, boy."
Instead, Kael spat blood from his lips. "I am drawing forward."
That evening, he was summoned at the stone desk under the archive stairs. Aurell waited, not cold this time, but furious.
"She drew back," Kael said quietly as Aurell stepped into his personal space, the rune-carved walls pulsing between them.
Aurell jabbed a finger. "You know how fragile control is. You should be grateful Eline pulled out."
Kael met his glare. "She didn't. You moved her."
Aurell recoiled, surprised. "What—"
Eline's name hung in the air. It shifted the power in the room.
Aurell's scarred lips tightened. "You think everyone conspires? Are you that voided of trust?"
"I think no one holds the truth." Kael froze the words in midair, but Aurell heard them.
As Kael left, the watchers' stone doors sealed behind him. He could sense Tenebris fight for control—the far echo of ancient force coursing through him, and another voice trying to drown it out.
He strode through empty halls, seeking two things: silence and the feel of reality underfoot.
He found neither.
By the time he reached the rooftop, the storm had begun—wind as bitter as granite. Lightning sketched its lines across the sky. He drew the shard from his pocket: the mirror's crescent glimmered in the fractured light.
He sliced it in half with a silent hand.
The shard trembled then steadied in the spray of rain.
Wind roared. Rain stung. Tenebris stirred.
Kael's blood sang beneath his skin.
And suddenly—he understood.
The watchers didn't bind his power.
They fed on it.
He closed his eyes and calmed his breath.
Tenebris coiled with him.
He opened his eyes, eyes bright with approaching storm.
The watchers' doors flared open behind him.
They stepped out—Aurell, Vess, Fennin.
Kael stood tall, rain lashed across his robes.
"I see your lines," he said. "I hear your whispers. I feel your fear."
Aurell stepped forward. "Enough games."
Kael glowed.
Not his aura—but the shard in his hand, flaring with pure absence, black-white as dawn and dusk entwined.
"Show me your lines."
The sigils behind the handlers trembled in their stones.
They gasped.
The watchers faltered.
Tenebris spoke—calm, deep:
"Balance is our path. Not power. Not prey."
Kael lowered the shard.
"Are you afraid of what I am," he said.
"No," Vess whispered. "Afraid of what we become if we don't stop."
Kael nodded.
Not victory.
Not acceptance.
But a moment of truth.