The morning after the storm felt too quiet.
Kael woke to the sound of rainwater dripping from the thatch roof, each drop thudding into the bucket by his bed. His body ached, though not from labor. The ache was deeper—woven into marrow, threaded through his veins. When he closed his eyes, he swore he could hear it: a faint hum, a vibration just beneath thought, like a chord strung too tight.
He sat up, clutching his temples.
Is this what resonance feels like?
The village had not spoken to him since the night before. He remembered their faces, etched in firelight—fear, suspicion, a mother clutching her child away from him. Kael had always been an outcast, but this was different. The shard's glow had marked him in ways no whispered insult ever had.
He stepped outside. Mist coiled over the fields, silver threads in the dawn. The air was sharp, alive, as if the whole valley breathed differently now. Every sound felt sharpened: the scrape of a hoe, the flap of a crow's wings, the sigh of the earth beneath his feet.
Kael flexed his fingers. For an instant, he thought he saw faint sparks dance across his palm, like dust catching sunlight. He clenched his fist and shoved it into his pocket.
---
By the well, two elders were murmuring. Their eyes slid toward him and quickly away.
"Cursed," one hissed under her breath.
"Echo-touched," the other replied, making a sign warding against evil.
Kael's jaw tightened. He forced himself to keep walking. He had grown up enduring their stares, but now each glance carried weight, as though invisible threads of judgment pressed down on him.
When he reached the tree line, he let himself breathe. The woods had always been his refuge. Here, the resonance was louder—like a pulse echoing through roots and branches. The shard inside him wasn't silent; it was awake.
And it was listening.
---
Far beyond the village, in the shadow of a ruined watchtower, another figure listened as well.
A cloaked man knelt on damp stone, pressing a crystal tablet against the earth. The device shimmered faintly, recording every vibration in the ground. He had felt it last night: a surge of resonance, sharp as a blade splitting silence.
He touched the sigil etched into his wrist.
"The report is true," he whispered, voice hushed. "A resonance has awakened in the outskirts. Strong… raw. Possibly untethered."
A static-laced voice replied through the mark.
"Observe. Do not engage. If the host survives the first week, he may be of use. If not… the shard will return to the soil."
The man bowed his head, gaze drifting toward the distant valley where Kael's village lay nestled in the mist.
"Understood."
---
Kael wandered deeper into the woods, drawn by an instinct he could not name. He found himself before a hollow tree, its bark charred from an old lightning strike. Something inside thrummed faintly—like a mirror to the shard in his chest.
He reached in. His fingers brushed cold metal.
When he pulled it free, he found not a weapon, but a relic: a cracked lantern, its glass stained with soot. Useless, perhaps, but the shard within him stirred at its presence. The lantern flickered faintly, though no flame burned.
Kael frowned.
"Why does this feel alive?"
The answer was silence. But the hum in his veins grew louder.
---
By the time he returned to the village, the sky had darkened. The mist had thickened into rain, and torches burned outside the hall. Voices rose, angry, fearful.
Kael stopped in the shadows.
"…he's dangerous."
"…we should cast him out before the Order comes."
"…you saw the glow, didn't you? That was no blessing."
His stomach churned. He had known rejection, but never exile. Never the fear that his very existence could bring ruin.
And yet, part of him understood. Because beneath their words, he too feared what he was becoming.
He turned away before they noticed him, clutching the cracked lantern to his chest. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled—not from the storm, but from something far older, echoing beneath the earth.
The ladders had fallen long ago. But their whispers had not died.
And now, one had chosen him.