The southern river wasn't much to look at unless you were desperate for quiet.
It twisted through the cracked edges of Kevarith like a blue vein, shallow enough that a child could wade across it in the dry months and fast enough to carry away anything not anchored when the rains came. Its banks were stone rather than sand—round, smooth, endless stones of every size, washed pale by time.
Most children in Kevarith never came this far. There were easier places to play. The market lanes, the abandoned square near the dye pits, the wide courtyards where adults half-watched and half-ignored their games.
But Kael wasn't most children.
---
They came alone, as they often did when they wanted to think.
The stones were cool beneath their palms as they crouched by the edge, sorting them with careful patience. Not all of them—just the ones that looked right. Flat, thin, light enough to skip but heavy enough to hold a spin.
It wasn't really about the stones, though.
It was about the way the river sounded.
---
Kael couldn't explain why, but something in the rush of water made them feel less… trapped. There were days when the city walls and its cramped streets felt like a box closing in from all sides. Here, at least, there was something that moved.
Even in their first life, before this one, they had always liked water. They couldn't remember the details—the city, the people, even the words—but they remembered the sound. It had a rhythm that nothing else in this world had.
Here, it was the same.
They flicked a pebble into the current. It sank without a splash.
---
"You know those just get stuck in the mud, right?"
The voice behind them was familiar.
Kael glanced back. Alren stood a little way up the bank, hands in his pockets, looking like he hadn't expected to find anyone here. His clothes were worn thin in the elbows, his dark hair chopped unevenly at the shoulders.
"I thought this part of the river was empty," Alren said.
"It usually is," Kael replied, looking back to the water.
"So why are you here?"
"I like the sound," Kael said simply.
---
Alren frowned and came closer. "And what are you doing?"
"Looking for flat ones."
"Flat ones?"
"For skipping," Kael explained. They picked up a stone and spun it between their fingers. "They need to be thin, like this."
---
Alren tilted his head. "People don't skip stones here. The water's too fast."
"Only if you throw them wrong," Kael said.
---
He didn't know why he was talking to them. Most of the other kids avoided Mira's child—not cruelly, not always—but because the curse made them strange. There was always that feeling, when you looked at Kael, that something about them wasn't real.
But here, away from everyone else, Kael just looked… normal.
Almost.
---
"What do you do with them?" Alren asked.
"I'll show you."
Kael straightened, holding the stone between thumb and finger the way no one else in Kevarith ever had. Then, without ceremony, they stepped to the edge and flicked their wrist.
The stone skimmed across the surface like a silver beetle.
One. Two. Three.
On the fourth skip, it sank.
---
Alren's eyes went wide. "How?"
"Angle," Kael said. "You have to make the water think it isn't there."
"That doesn't make sense."
"It does to me," Kael said. They crouched again, searching the stones.
---
The second throw was better.
One. Two. Three. Four.
Four full skips before it disappeared downstream.
Alren's jaw dropped.
"That isn't normal," he said.
"I know," Kael answered simply. They brushed their hands on their knees, unbothered.
---
Alren pointed at the water. "I've never seen anyone in Kevarith do that. Not even grown men by the docks."
Kael shrugged. "Maybe they don't practice."
"And you do?"
"All the time."
"Where?"
"Before," Kael said without thinking. "Before here."
Alren blinked. "Before where?"
Kael hesitated, realizing what they had said, and covered it with a shrug. "Doesn't matter. I just… remember how."
---
They skipped another stone. This one went crooked and splashed on the first bounce. Kael made a small face and tossed the next one without even watching where it landed.
"Why are you like that?" Alren asked suddenly.
Kael blinked. "Like what?"
"You know… different. Everyone says it. You talk weird. You think weird. You do things like that."
Kael glanced down at their hands.
---
It wasn't a new question.
Even in their first life, they had been a little off from everyone else—less loud, less careless. More aware of the way everything connected. And then this second life, with memories of the first whispering in the background… It was like wearing a shirt that didn't fit no matter how much you tried to stretch it.
---
They could have said, Because I remember a world no one here has seen.
They could have said, Because when you know what it feels like to die, everything else feels smaller.
But those weren't things you told other children.
---
"I just see things differently," Kael said at last.
---
"Does it make people mad?"
"Sometimes," Kael admitted. "Sometimes they just don't know what to do with it."
---
Alren nodded slowly. He didn't fully understand, but he understood enough.
---
For a while, they just threw stones. The sun climbed higher. The water sparkled. The only sound was the splash and skip of stones over water.
Then, without really thinking about it, Alren muttered something.
Not in common.
In the old tongue.
A half-forgotten phrase his grandmother sometimes whispered when she thought no one could hear.
---
Kael answered.
Clearly. Smoothly. Perfectly.
As if they had been born to speak it.
---
Alren froze. "How do you know that?"
"I just know," Kael said.
"No one my age talks like that. Even my father doesn't know those words!"
"Then maybe your father's blood doesn't remember as loud as yours," Kael said simply.
---
Alren blinked. He wasn't sure if that made sense.
"You sound like one of the old ones," he said.
"I've been told that before," Kael replied.
---
The next stone Kael picked out, they didn't throw.
"Here," they said. "Try this one."
Alren took it, glanced at them.
"Thumb here," Kael instructed, demonstrating. "And fingers like this. You don't throw with your arm—you throw with your wrist. Quick."
---
The first try sank.
The second wobbled.
The third… skipped.
Once.
Alren's eyes widened.
---
"Again," Kael said, handing him another stone.
This time it skipped twice.
---
For a long moment, Alren just stared at the ripples where it sank. Then a grin spread across his face.
---
"You're going to have to teach me," he said.
Kael smiled faintly. "If you want me to."
---
By the time the sun had started to dip low, their hands were dusty from stones and their feet wet from the shallows.
They walked back along the bank, neither in a hurry.
"You ever feel like you don't belong anywhere?" Alren asked suddenly.
"All the time," Kael said.
"And what do you do with that?"
Kael thought for a long moment, then shrugged. "I skip stones."
---
Alren laughed, just once. It wasn't a mean laugh. It was… surprised. Like he hadn't expected an answer that simple.
---
The city walls loomed ahead of them, but for a moment, Kael didn't feel as trapped as they usually did.
---
That night, Kael thought of the river as they fell asleep, the echo of old words still in their ears.
There were many reasons they were different.
They had known that for a long time.
But meeting someone who saw even a piece of that difference and stayed anyway…
That felt new.