The air had grown gentler over the past two days. Gone were the choking shadows of the forest, gone were the endless screams of bandits we had left behind. Instead, the plains stretched open before us like a soft carpet, golden under the sun, swaying with the breeze.
Kael walked beside me, his steps slower than before, still burdened by the wound he had taken on his side. Though it had closed, I could see the faint stiffness in his stride—the sort of ache one learns to live with rather than speak about. He said nothing of it, but every time he drew in a breath, his jaw tightened ever so slightly.
We walked for hours without words. The silence was not uncomfortable, yet it carried weight. A silence filled with things left unsaid—his past, my confusion about this strange world, the strange egg I carried, and the faint echo of the System that had awakened within me during the bandit fight.
Then, as though the world wanted to gift us a moment of pause, we reached a cliff.
From its edge poured a fountain of crystalline water, cascading into the depths below with a roaring voice that was somehow calming. And beside that cliff, near where the ground widened, stood a solitary tree. It was unlike any I had seen in this world or my old one—its bark was a deep silvery gray, and its leaves shimmered faintly, almost as though light passed through them like glass.
Kael stopped. For the first time in two days, his lips curved slightly.
"The Healer's Willow," he murmured, as though speaking the name of an old friend.
Before I could ask, he walked forward, pressed his palm against the bark, and then plucked one of its translucent leaves. Crushing it between his fingers, he pressed the sap onto his scar. I watched, wide-eyed, as the wound that had troubled him for days sealed within moments, leaving behind only a dark scar across his skin.
He exhaled, long and steady. "It doesn't erase the mark. It never does. But it eases the ache. That's all I need."
We rested there. I sat beneath the Willow, running my hand over its roots while Kael leaned back, gazing at the endless horizon.
Something in his silence gnawed at me. The more I traveled with him, the more I wanted to know who he truly was beneath that stoic face.
So I asked, "Kael… what was your life like after the guild took you in? I mean—after… everything."
He turned his head toward me, eyes unreadable, as though deciding whether I was worth the answer. For a long moment, he said nothing. Then, slowly, he closed his eyes and spoke—not to me, but as if to the air itself.
"I was ten when the Guild found me. Ten years old, barefoot, covered in ash, and with no name left but the one my mother had whispered to me before she died. For five years I had wandered like a ghost, hiding from shadows, scavenging scraps, surviving not because I wanted to, but because my body refused to die.
When the Guild found me, I was stealing from their supply caravan. I remember holding a half-rotten loaf of bread in my hands, snarling at them like a feral dog when they cornered me. Instead of killing me, they brought me back.
I thought it was a trick. I thought they'd fatten me up and sell me to slavers. But when I woke up in their barracks, covered in blankets, with food on the table… I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to live anymore.
That was when I met him.
Lio. He was the first person to smile at me without pity. The first to spar with me without holding back. The first to laugh when I tripped, and then offer his hand to help me up.
He was everything I wasn't—loud, reckless, fearless. He taught me how to fight with a blade, how to hunt monsters, how to share a drink even when we were too young to be drinking."
Kael's voice faltered, and for the first time, I saw a shadow cross his face that was not from the sun.
"We took our first mission together when we turned twelve. It was nothing more than chasing off a wild beast that had wandered too close to the fields. He stood in front, blade raised, shouting like he was already a hero. And I… I followed behind, terrified but unwilling to let him see it. That was the first time I felt alive.
For the first time, I believed I wasn't alone anymore."
Kael leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his gaze fixed on the horizon where the fountain mist rose into the air like a ghost. His words slowed, heavier now.
"But you saw them, didn't you? The bandits. The same ones we fought in that village."
I nodded slowly.
"They were the ones who killed him. Lio. My friend, my brother. We were fourteen when it happened.
We had gone on a mission too far, too dangerous. A scouting job near the northern passes. We didn't know the bandits had been gathering there. By the time we realized, it was too late. They ambushed us.
We fought, gods, we fought with everything we had. I killed three of them myself that day. But Lio… he was struck down. I can still hear his scream. I can still see his blood staining the snow.
I tried to save him. I dragged his body through the blizzard, hoping the Guild would heal him. But when I reached the outpost, he was already gone.
And when I buried him, I thought the world had ended for me a second time."
Kael's hand clenched into a fist, trembling despite his effort to remain still. His voice dropped to a whisper, cold yet unbearably raw.
"The Guild gave me a home. But a home is not a family. They gave me food, training, a bed to sleep in—but not once did I feel the warmth I felt when Lio was beside me. They laughed, they cheered, they called me comrade, but deep down… I was still alone.
The only time I didn't feel that loneliness was when I was with him. And now he's gone.
So I fight. I hunt. I bleed. And I live, not because I want to, but because I refuse to let his death mean nothing.
And now… now the bandits who took him from me are dead. For the first time in years, I feel a weight lifted. But do you know what I realized, Auren?"
He turned to me then, his eyes sharp as blades, yet colder than ice.
"No scar truly heals. The body forgets the pain, but the heart remembers. Always."
The silence that followed was heavier than any words. I sat there, unable to speak, feeling the depth of Kael's loss in every syllable. His past was painted with blood, fire, and loneliness, and yet he stood beside me, alive, carrying scars that would never fade.
I wanted to say something, anything. To tell him he wasn't alone anymore. That even if he believed he was cursed to solitude, I was here. That maybe, just maybe, we could carry our burdens together.
But the words stuck in my throat.
Instead, I placed a hand on the egg beside me—the strange, mysterious egg that had chosen to remain with me. For a fleeting moment, I wondered if it, too, carried some hidden story of loss and survival.
The night grew darker. The fountain roared endlessly, a song of water meeting stone. Kael lay down against the roots of the Healer's Willow, his face unreadable once more.
I whispered, almost to myself, "You're not as alone as you think, Kael."
He didn't respond. Perhaps he had already fallen asleep. Or perhaps he had heard, and chosen silence as his answer.
Either way, I knew this much: beneath the scars, beneath the cold, Kael still carried the heart of the boy who once smiled beside his first friend.
And I swore, silently, that I would not let him lose that again.