I dreamed of quiet that night.
Not peace. Not rest.
Absence.
In the dream, I walked through a city made of glass and smoke. Towers rose like fragile ribs into a sky that never settled on a color. Everything shimmered faintly, as if the world itself had forgotten how to be solid. Streets stretched endlessly, empty but not abandoned. There were people there, I knew it. I could feel their movement, the displacement of air, the echo of footsteps that never quite landed.
They passed through me.
Not around me. Through me.
A woman brushed my shoulder without slowing. A man walked straight through my chest, his face slack with thought, his eyes never lifting. Children ran laughing, their laughter silent, their hands slicing through my arms like fog.
I looked down at myself.
I had no shadow.
Panic flared, sharp and instinctive. I tried to grab one of them, any of them, but my fingers met nothing but resistance-less space. I opened my mouth and screamed, just once, just to prove I still existed.
The sound never formed.
No echo. No vibration. Not even the sensation of breath leaving my lungs.
The absence swallowed it whole.
I woke with my heart racing, my breath tearing from my chest in ragged gasps. My shadows were wrapped tight around my ribs, coiled so hard they ached, like they were trying to keep me anchored inside my own body. It took several seconds before I could move my fingers. Longer before I could convince myself that the silence was gone.
It wasn't.
Not entirely.
It lingered in the corners of the room, in the spaces between sounds. Waiting.
Kael was already at the basin when I arrived.
Of course he was.
He stood at the edge of the stone circle, hands clasped behind his back, posture immaculate. The dawn light painted the ravine in muted greys and pale gold, but it never quite touched him. It bent, curved away, as if unsure whether it was allowed.
"You're late," he said without turning.
"I slept," I replied flatly.
"That is not an excuse."
I scowled, stepping fully into the basin. "You didn't give me a time."
He turned then, slow and deliberate, silver eyes cutting straight through me. "I did."
"When?"
"Your body ignored it."
I opened my mouth to argue, then stopped. My jaw tightened. There was no point. Kael never said things casually. If he claimed I should have known, then somehow, infuriatingly, I probably had.
I took my place in the center of the basin.
The stone was cold beneath my boots. Ash from yesterday's lesson still dusted the surface, disturbed only where I had failed.
Kael began to circle me.
Not hurried. Not predatory. Just… precise. His presence pressed against my senses, not like force, but like pressure. A reminder that he was there, watching every breath, every twitch of muscle.
"Again," he said.
I closed my eyes.
This time, I didn't try to banish the fear. I didn't shove it down or drown it in shadow. I acknowledged it. Let it exist. Let it hum through my blood without giving it teeth.
The shadows reacted immediately.
Not by surging. Not by shrinking.
They stilled.
The silence came more easily, folding around me like slipping beneath dark water. Not dragged. Not forced. Chosen. It wrapped my outline, smoothed the jagged edges of my presence until even my heartbeat seemed to soften.
I took a step.
The stone did not answer.
Another.
Kael stopped circling. I felt his attention sharpen, focus narrowing like a blade finding its angle.
"Good," he said.
The word landed in my chest with more weight than it should have. Approval from Kael was never free. It always cost something.
"Now move past me."
My eyes snapped open.
He stood directly in my path, close enough that I could see the faint tension in his jaw, the subtle rise and fall of his chest.
"That's not—" I began.
"Move," he repeated, voice calm but absolute.
My throat went dry. I stepped forward, letting the silence deepen, letting it pull tighter around me. I did not push. I did not reach. I did not command.
I let go.
I passed him.
For half a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then I felt it.
A ripple. Not in the silence, but in him.
I turned, breath still caught in my lungs.
Kael stood where I had been, shoulders rigid, fingers flexing once at his side.
"You felt that," I said quietly.
"Yes."
"What?"
His jaw tightened. "Nothing."
A laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it. Soft. Disbelieving. "Liar."
The air cracked.
Not sound. Pressure.
The basin trembled beneath my feet, stone groaning like something waking. Kael was in front of me in an instant, faster than thought, faster than fear. His hand closed around my throat, not choking, not crushing, just enough to remind me how easily he could.
"Do not test me," he said softly. His voice was calm. That was the most dangerous part. "Not while you are learning."
My pulse thundered against his grip, but I didn't look away. "Then don't pretend you're unaffected."
For a long, suspended second, we stared at each other. Power pressed against power, silence trembling on the brink of collapse.
Then Kael released me.
He stepped back, visibly reining himself in, shoulders squaring as control slid back into place.
"You crave validation," he said. "That is your weakness."
"Everyone does," I shot back, rubbing my throat.
"No," he corrected. "Everyone lies about it."
He exhaled slowly, then gestured to the basin floor. "Again. This time, you will cross without disturbing the dust."
I followed his gaze.
Fine grey ash coated the stone, smooth and untouched. One misstep would betray me.
"You're joking."
"I do not joke during lessons."
I moved.
Slow. Careful. Every muscle conscious, every breath measured. The silence wrapped tighter, compressing me until it felt like being held beneath the surface of a deep lake without drowning.
Step.
Nothing.
Another.
Still nothing.
By the time I reached the far edge, my legs shook, my vision swimming with the effort of maintaining the void around me.
"Turn," Kael said.
I did.
For the first time since I'd crossed his Gate, Kael smiled.
It wasn't kind.
It wasn't cruel.
It was satisfied.
"Well done," he said.
Warmth bloomed in my chest at those words, immediate and terrifying. I hated how much I wanted to hear them again. How much I wanted that look.
Kael's expression sharpened. "Do not let that become dependence."
"I didn't say—"
"You didn't need to."
He gestured toward the ravine. "Tomorrow, we begin applying this."
"To what?" I asked, already dreading the answer.
His gaze slid toward the distant spires of his Court. "To hunting. To escape. To assassination."
My stomach dropped. "I'm not a killer."
Kael's eyes were flint. "You already are. You just choose your targets carefully."
He turned away, his voice following me like a blade's edge.
"You mistake patience for gentleness," he said. "A blade can be polished before it cuts."
I stood alone in the basin long after he left, the silence clinging to me like a second skin.
And the worst part was this.
For the first time since crossing Kael's Gate, the quiet did not feel like something being taken from me.
It felt like something being given.
And I didn't know how much of myself I would lose learning to keep it.