The air in Kaelen's chamber was still — too still.Only the faint rise and fall of his breath disturbed the silence. He sat cross-legged beneath the narrow window, the first pale light of dawn spilling across his shoulders like liquid amber.
For hours, he had been trying to stabilize his inner flame — to align the uneven rhythm that pulsed within his spiritual sea. But something was wrong tonight. The fire didn't feel like his own.
It watched him.
At first, it was only a flicker — a brief tremor in his spiritual flow. But when he reached inward again, the flame quivered in response, like a beast aware of unseen eyes.
Kaelen frowned and drew a slow breath. The sect's cultivation manuals spoke of "spiritual echo" — energy responding to intent. But this… this felt deeper. Personal.
He pressed his fingers together, forming the basic seal of flow stabilization. Threads of light gathered around him, forming faint motes that drifted through the air. Normally, they would move toward his dantian, merging into warmth. But now they hesitated — as though pulled by some other presence nearby.
Kaelen opened his eyes.The light in the room seemed strange — dimmer than before. He looked toward the wall. For just an instant, he thought he saw a faint shimmer of red — a sigil's ghost, there and gone again.
His breath caught.A watcher's mark.
He exhaled softly, forcing calm. "So they've started already," he murmured. "Elder Solen, perhaps?"
His hand tightened around the small pendant hanging from his neck — an old trinket Varin had given him when he first entered the sect. "When your flame trembles," Varin had said, "it isn't always fear. Sometimes, it's warning you of another flame nearby."
Kaelen rose, brushing the dust from his robes. His cultivation chamber was sparse — just stone, candlelight, and the faint smell of smoke from last night's meditation. Yet for the first time, it felt crowded.
Something unseen lingered there — not a person, but an attention.
He moved to the window and looked out across the courtyard. Morning mist curled around the training platforms, carrying the hum of distant chants. The sect was waking, unaware of the silent web stretching across its heart.
And in that hum, Kaelen felt it — a pulse that wasn't his own. The fire within him responded instinctively, whispering in faint, broken syllables. He couldn't make out words, only the weight of intent: Hide.
A faint smile touched his lips. "So even you can sense it," he whispered to the ember inside.
He sat again, slower this time, and steadied his breathing. The watcher's flame pressed faintly at the edges of his consciousness, probing. He let it — letting his energy flow naturally, pretending ignorance. Then, beneath that calm surface, he began to weave the smallest strand of dark spiritual essence, folding it over the connection like a veil.
If they wanted to see his fire, they would only see what he allowed.
The faint sigil outside his wall flickered once more, but this time, the light dimmed — distorted — as if the space around it warped. Kaelen's spiritual sense caught the shift, and he smiled inwardly. The watcher's sight had blurred.
Moments later, the air lightened. The strange tension receded.
He opened his eyes and looked down at his hands — faint traces of smoke curling from his fingertips. The ember in his core pulsed gently, steady once more.
"Good," he murmured. "Now, let's see how far I can push before they notice again."
The candlelight flared as he drew in a slow breath, gathering Qi into his palms. Flames rose, shaped by thought alone — faint patterns forming within them. Hidden runes. Fragments of something forbidden.
And far above the chamber, in the quiet of the Elder's Tower, a faint crimson seal blinked erratically — its link disrupted for the first time since it was placed.
Elder Solen looked up from his meditation, eyes narrowing.
"The boy…" he whispered. "He's learning to hide his flame."