Kael stood leaned against a tree. Running water and night birds filled the silence around him, and a small cloud formed with each breath.
'Unusually chilly today.'
His eyes moved from the moon to an old oak that must have fallen more than twenty years ago, by now so heavily covered in vegetation it looked more like a small hill than a tree.
He waited.
A branch snapped.
An older man in ragged clothes and with the look of someone who had stopped caring about hygiene some time ago walked over and leaned against the oak in much the same way Kael did.
'The dealer.'
Moments later a man and a woman emerged from the bushes, noticeably healthier than the seller.
A few words were exchanged. Gold coins changed hands. Then they parted. The couple waited while the dealer disappeared back into the bushes.
Kael pushed off the tree and took three steps until the two lined up. He reached into his pocket and produced a card. Diamond three this time. It left his fingers with a whip-crack.
Two wet cracks followed as it passed through their necks and continued into the distance, too far for anyone to mark where it landed.
Kael walked over and stopped.
This was a problem.
Ever since the deal with Sielle had gone through Kael had been refining more Stone Coffins, and true to the nature of the mote it required human parts. Specifically hearts. The other ingredients were easy enough to source in the capital, but hearts were something he had to gather himself.
The killing itself wasn't the issue. What he was killing was.
Humans were different from beasts or Dreadborne. They had relationships and people who remembered them.
He hadn't killed the dealer, even though the man existed at the margins of society. He was still someone to others. People depended on him. Whether that applied to the young couple at his feet was less certain, but the principle held regardless. Of the two, the young mortals were statistically less likely to leave behind connections that mattered. The dealer was guaranteed to have them.
Kael crouched and raised a finger as though shushing someone.
A gold-white tendril emerged from his fingertip, covered in crimson Will. It moved on its own, slithering through the air until it found the young woman's neck, then slowly entered her skin and began closing the wound.
He produced another and guided it to the man.
When both wounds were sealed he moved their bodies aside and set about cleaning the area. This was where the dealer conducted his business, and people in that trade were cautious by nature. Not a single trace of blood could remain.
Kael glanced at their necks.
Ever since the Primordial eye had rebuilt him, it had fused with his soul. From that point he had begun to feel every thread the way he could feel and count his Thoughts, a constant low awareness of something that had become part of him. It was almost as though the eye had added a fourth element to his inner realm.
With that connection came possibilities, limited as they currently were. He could draw a tendril out and carry it into the material world through his Will, but his control over it was poor at best. Theoretically he should be capable of directing all of the thousands of tendrils simultaneously. In practice, a single one was the most he could manage, and even then it felt like trying to guide a leaf caught in a strong current using the end of a long stick. The tendril didn't have a will of its own exactly, but it had strength and momentum that far exceeded his ability to direct it precisely. Kael suspected someone like Taric, given his rank, could have managed three at once without particular effort.
But poor control wasn't the same as useless.
The tendrils were part of a primordial mote. They were extraordinarily resilient, resilient enough that Kael was confident he couldn't cut one even swinging his blade at full force. And because they were part of a mote they could be dismissed entirely with a single thought.
He had spent time every day working on the control of a single tendril, trying to make each movement more deliberate than the last. By now, the most precise thing he could reliably do with it was sew a wound.
Satisfied with his work, Kael picked up both bodies, placed them over his shoulder, and continued on. The Stone Coffin would have made this considerably easier, but he had long decided to play it safe on the surface.
He jumped onto a large boulder and slid down the other side, where a natural cave came into view. He walked inside for a few minutes before tossing the couple onto a pile of bodies. Around twenty dead mortals already lay here, each one killed by Kael. He pulled out his knife and removed their hearts.
The pile was a mess. Heads and hands torn loose, flesh stripped from legs and chests entirely. The colossal mountain leaf bear had done considerable work on them. Its appetite, however, couldn't keep pace with the rate new bodies arrived. The ones furthest down had begun to rot, which was evident by the rotting smell. Bears weren't scavengers, and that was becoming a problem.
Kael studied it with a deep expression.
He had considered it and decided against it. Storing the bodies in the Stone Coffin would fill it too quickly, and he had already tested what happened when he tried to expand that capacity. After noticing the Stone Coffin retained its contents even after being destroyed and re-refined, he had claimed a second one, pouring his Will into it the same way he had the first. The result wasn't what he had hoped for. The two didn't function as separate storages. They functioned as one. Whatever was inside the first was inside the second. Not duplicated, just shared, as though both motes were windows into the same space rather than two distinct spaces. Creating more Stone Coffins hadn't given him more room. It had simply given him more doors into the same room, which could be considered the same as useless.
It was almost as though the storage itself was connected to his soul rather than to the motes. Fitting, given the pathway, but still.
He thought for a moment longer before leaving.
The bear was pregnant. If his luck held, it might eat for two. And if not, he would move some of the bodies next time. Either way, a solution would present itself.
—
The sun cast long shadows over Sole. Two weeks had passed since he had taken Luke in, and by the looks of it, he had taken Kael's words to heart.
Fresh paint covered the exterior and a new door stood properly on its hinges. There was even a sign, poorly carved but legible, reading Velarific Wellness.
"Welcome to Velarific Wellness."
A tired voice drifted from the counter.
"You'll need more energy than that, Luke."
Kael said, removing his military cape.
Luke snapped upright at the voice and nearly toppled from his chair, then just as quickly collapsed back onto the desk.
The inside had changed noticeably too. Luke had painted the walls and furniture and kept everything neatly organised. Actual refinement ingredients with medical properties lined the shelves, and next to Luke a tower of several dozen books loomed over his collapsed figure.
"You've been reading as I told you to?"
Kael asked, walking over to a water jug and pouring himself a glass.
"Ahhh.... Mister Eireindaile. I think I might actually die if this continues."
Kael laughed in response.
He hadn't been easy on Luke since taking him in. He had went to the library and bought every book on human anatomy and medicine he could find, then told him to read for at least eight hours a day. Luke had thrown himself at it as though his life depended on it, which wasn't entirely wrong.
"Let's see what you've learned." Kael pulled a chair and placed it in front of the counter.
Luke paled at the gesture. He knew exactly what was coming.
"A man coughs blood. Convince me it didn't come from his lungs."
Kael said, taking a sip.
"Lung blood is bright, frothy, and mixed with sputum. Gastric blood is darker, often mixed with food, and typically follows nausea or retching. Bleeding from the nose or throat may simply be swallowed and expelled later."
Luke answered, sitting up straighter as he spoke.
"Why does a dying man breathe faster?"
"To compensate for metabolic acidosis, hypoxia, fever, or impaired circulation. Respiration is often the body's last successful compensation."
"You find no pulse at the wrist. Is the man dead?"
"No. Peripheral pulses disappear long before central circulation necessarily ceases."
For almost an hour Kael pushed him like this, question after complex question, expecting answers of equal complexity. Only a handful stumped him completely, and those Kael answered himself. By the time it was over Luke had folded entirely over the counter, breathing as though he had run without stopping for hours. Steam might genuinely have been rising from his head.
Kael gave him a few pats on the back.
"Not bad." He picked up a book and placed it in front of him. "You missed most of the questions from this one. Give it a few more reads before I come back."
Something muffled was murmured into the counter. Kael raised an eyebrow and took another sip.
With Luminaires taking the spotlight of this world, the medical field had been left severely underdeveloped, the assumption being that motes would handle whatever needed handling. By now, having worked through every relevant book he could find, Kael was no less capable than any mortal doctor who treated ordinary patients. In certain respects, factoring in his Luminaire experience, he could be considered more qualified.
He didn't particularly care about everyone he was about to treat. But there needed to be legitimacy in what he was doing, and legitimacy required competence.
"Have you eaten today?"
Kael leaned back in the chair.
"No."
"Let's go then."
Luke pushed himself upright with energy that hadn't been there a moment ago and swept a few strands of golden hair from his face.
"Absolutely, Mister Eireindaile."