Night didn't fall in the Whisperers' compound—it bled in.
The torches were dimmed low. The long corridors, always silent, grew almost reverent after dusk. Shadows stretched like spines between archways. Kael moved through them as if following a scent only he could smell.
And maybe he was.
A coin no one else could see.
A voice no one else had heard.
A sparring match no one else had ordered—except someone had.
He stopped outside Ser Whitmer's door. A single glyph etched above the lintel warned silence, not privacy. A distinction that mattered, here.
Kael knocked.
No answer.
He stepped in anyway.
The room was spartan. A cot, a single desk stacked with worn notebooks, and a sword that hadn't been used in years hung above a wall of peeling maps. Whitmer sat at the desk, not turning. He was sipping something steaming from a tin cup.
"You took your time," the old man rasped.
Kael didn't speak at first. He let the silence coil between them. The room felt colder than the hallway—as if it remembered every lie ever told inside it.
"You knew," Kael finally said.
Whitmer raised an eyebrow, not turning. "You'll have to be more specific, boy. I know many things. And I've forgotten twice as much."
Kael stepped forward. "About me. About what I am. About why they tested me the way they did."
Now the old Whisperer turned. One eye was clouded; the other, sharp as a scalpel.
"I know what you might be," he said. "That's not the same."
Kael clenched his fists. "Then tell me. I need to hear someone say it."
Whitmer snorted, half bitter amusement, half warning. "You want truths, Kael? Fine. I'll give you a taste. You're stronger than most of the others. Not in skill. Not in rank. In resilience. You should've cracked twice by now. The training. The suspicion. The shadows clawing at your sleep."
"They do claw," Kael said softly. "Every night."
Whitmer's face didn't flinch. "Then you're still alive. That's more than I can say for the last one."
That hung in the air like a blade.
"…Last one?"
Whitmer leaned forward, elbows on the desk. "They called her Shael. A decade ago. Bonded to something from the Deepfold. Something that wore dreams like clothing. She made it through half the trials. Until they pushed her too far. She didn't break. She vanished. Took three cadets with her. They say she turned full Gloam."
"Was she Veilbound?"
Whitmer stared at him. Then, with deliberate motion, set his cup down.
"We don't use that word," he said. "Not officially. Not in reports. But between us? Yes. She was one of them. Like you."
Kael's breath caught.
"You could've told me."
"I'm telling you now."
Kael stepped closer. "Why? Why me? Why did they let me in if they knew?"
"They didn't. Not all of them. Some think you're just unstable. Others think you're useful. But me?" Whitmer's good eye locked onto Kael's. "I think you're a mirror. And mirrors scare people."
"Because I reflect what they are?"
"No. Because you reflect what they want to deny."
Kael's shoulders tensed. "So what do I do? Wait until they decide I'm a threat and cut my throat in my sleep?"
"Or," Whitmer said, voice like iron, "you become indispensable. You learn the rules better than they do. You survive long enough that they can't risk killing you. You burn slowly. Controlled. Not all wildfires die out—they become cities."
Kael looked at the sword on the wall. Then back to Whitmer.
"And if I can't control it?"
"Then I'll put you down myself," Whitmer said.
Not cruel. Not threatening. Just true.
Kael didn't return to his quarters.
He wandered the library halls in silence. The whispers of past cadets, old parchment, and secret truths slithered behind the stone.
He thought about Bran's absence. About Eline's door that night. About the coin. The cultist's words.
"The Little Kin always return."
"The shadow knows its own."
What if Tenebris hadn't chosen him?
What if it had found him?
A thread began to pull in his mind—not a truth yet, but a shape beneath the waterline. He didn't know who his mother had been. His father, barely a name. Maybe the curse wasn't just a bond.
Maybe it was a birthright.
By the time he returned to his cot, dawn's gray breath was curling against the window.
He lay down without sleep. Tenebris stirred faintly within him. Not hungry. Not angry.
Just… present.
As if it, too, was waiting to see what Kael would choose next.