The morning light slanted through the hut's single window, dust dancing in golden shafts. Arielle crouched near the edge of the graveyard, balancing on a stone, her fingers stained with dirt. She wasn't afraid of graves—not the old, broken ones, nor the freshly filled. She liked them.
They didn't talk.
She pressed her hand into the soil. It was cold. Damp beneath the surface. A stillness lingered here—deeper than silence. A waiting. She didn't know what it meant, only that it felt familiar.
Xu An's voice called out from behind.
"There you are, girl. I said dig up the herbs, not have a conversation with the dead."
She didn't turn.
"I wasn't talking."
"No, you never do," he muttered. "Not with me, anyway."
The dead didn't sleep here.
They whispered. Drifted. Watched.
But ever since she whispered the chant — the one gifted to her by the voice inside her soul — everything had changed.
It had started with stillness.
A quiet so complete it felt like the earth had stopped spinning. Then came the pulse. A soft thrum in her chest, followed by a cold pressure that wrapped around her ribs like frostbitten fingers.
And then it happened.
She had channeled her first Kido — not through hands or markings, but through her soul.
The voice within her had whispered the incantation the first time, clear and slow:
"Bind and reveal: that which wanders, pause and be seen."
It hadn't been her strength alone — the spirit had guided her, anchored the words into her soul like roots through soil.
And when the final word left her lips, her world shifted.
She saw Xu An's soul flame.
It hovered within him, dim and frail — not blue, not red, not gold. Just pale light, like a candle left out in the rain.
It wavered.
It shook when he coughed. It pulsed unevenly when he moved too fast. It felt as if one wrong breeze might snuff it out.
And for the first time, Arielle understood something awful:
He was dying.
She didn't tell him what she'd seen.
She didn't tell him about the whispers in the mist, or the spirits that stood still between the graves, watching her with eyes that weren't there. She didn't tell him how the Kido spell let her peer past the skin and see the soul within.
And she didn't tell him that his was fading.
But she watched him.
Every night, she practiced the spell in secret. She whispered the chant beneath her breath, felt it stir in her chest, and then pushed it through her soul like a current through wire.
Each time, she grew stronger.
Each time, Xu An's flame flickered a little more.
She wanted to help him. Save him. Reach inside and shield that trembling light from the wind.
But the voice inside her — that cold, ancient whisper — spoke clearly.
"You are not strong enough."
"You are a Soul Apprentice. You cannot save him."
"To protect a flame, you must first master your own."
She had clenched her fists, but she hadn't argued.
Not because she agreed.
But because she already knew it was true.
And so she watched.
Watched him repair the roof. Watched him cough blood into his sleeve and wipe it away before she could see. Watched him laugh and teach her to tie traps. Watched him share stories about cities he visited in his youth, places he claimed she'd visit one day.
And while he talked, she stared at his chest — not to be rude, it felt very weak but it exuded such warmth. Yet, there was a sliver of rage filled resentment in it.
She would never ask