The crisp, cool air of the garden did little to soothe the restless energy humming under Tianlei's skin. He stood beneath an old apple tree, its branches bare and skeletal against the grey sky. It was his mother's favorite tree, she said it bore the sweetest fruit in the summer. But now, in the dead of winter, there was nothing. Nothing but a deep, gnawing craving that had taken root in his stomach.
He needed the crisp, tart-sweet burst of flavor on his tongue, the satisfying crunch. It was an dying need.
His parents' warnings echoed in his head, a dull, background noise to the craving. "Don't climb the tree, Tianlei. The branches are too brittle this time of year. You'll fall." They were always warning him, always trying to contain him, to keep him safe in a world that felt increasingly like a cage.
He was alone. The garden was empty, the house silent. He looked left, his dark eyes scanning the hedges. He looked right, towards the silent, watching windows of the manor. There was no one.
A slow, secretive smile touched his lips. He didn't need to climb.
He raised a hand, palm facing the highest, most inaccessible branch where a single, forgotten, apple still clung stubbornly. He concentrated. The air around his fingers shimmered, and from his fingertips, thin, glistening threads of pure energy erupted. They were not light, nor were they dark, they were a translucent silver, like spider silk woven from starlight. They were an extension of his will, a power that felt as natural to him as breathing, and yet he knew, with a certainty that chilled his blood, that it was utterly unnatural.
His mother's magic was one of lightning, a gentle warmth. His father's… his father's power was a roaring, terrifying inferno of dark magic, the very power that had been forcibly injected into Tianlei's small body in a series of brutal experiments. He was a child meant to contain the uncontainable.
"Someone like you… it's impossible… too much, far too much…" The whispers of the mages who examined him swirled in his memory. They looked at him with a mixture of pity and fear.
Now, his parents wants him to work in the 'right path'. But what was the right path when your very soul was a battleground between the light you were born from and the darkness that was forced upon you?
The silvery strings shot upward, silent and precise, wrapping around the shriveled apple with an almost tender delicacy. With a flick of his wrist, he severed the stem and retracted the threads, the fruit landing softly in his open palm. It was small, its skin wrinkled and dull, a sorry prize. But to him, it was a victory.
He bit into it. The flesh was mealy and tasteless, a disappointment. But the act itself was what mattered. The use of the power they all feared will consume him. He stared into the middle distance, chewing the bland pulp, his mind a thousand miles away, trapped in the labyrinth of his own existence.
From the shadow of a large building, Ren watched his son. His heart ached with a pain so profound it was a heavy in his chest. He saw the furtive glances, the shimmer of power, the profound loneliness in the boy's posture. Tianlei's aura was a chaotic, swirling violent whirlpool of light and shadow, a disturbing sight that no child should ever possess. It was his fault. All of it. His past, his choices, his own taste for power had led to this, to a son who looked at him not with love, but with the wary understanding.
He wanted nothing more than to bridge the gap between them. To sit with him under this tree and talk about nothing of consequence. To hear him laugh without the edge of bitterness that always seemed to tinge it. But every time he tried, Tianlei would retreat behind a wall of quiet resistance, his young eyes holding an ancient knowledge that shut Ren out completely.
He was about to turn away, to leave the boy to his small rebellion, when Tianlei's voice cut through the quiet, clear and flat, without even turning his head.
"I know you're hiding. You can come out, Dad."
The word 'Dad' struck Ren with the force of a blow. It wasn't spoken with affection, but it wasn't spoken with malice either. It was a simple acknowledgment, a statement of fact. And for Ren, who craved any scrap of connection, it was everything. A flicker of fragile hope ignited in his chest.
He stepped out from behind the building, the gravel of the path crunching softly under his boots. He walked slowly, deliberately, giving Tianlei every opportunity to tell him to leave. The boy didn't.
Ren came to a stop a few feet away, unsure of how to proceed. He looked down at his son, who was still staring blankly ahead, eating the terrible apple.
"That… doesn't look very appetizing," Ren said, his voice softer than he intended.
Tianlei shrugged a thin shoulder. "It's what was there."
Silence descended again, thick and uncomfortable. Ren searched for words, for the right thing to say that wouldn't push his son further away.
"Your mother was looking for you earlier," he tried, a safe, mundane topic.
"I know," Tianlei replied. "I heard her. I didn't feel like being found."
The honesty was brutal. Ren nodded, accepting it. He gestured to the spot on the cold ground next to Tianlei. "May I?"
Tianlei glanced at him, a flicker of surprise in his dark eyes before the guarded expression returned. He gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod.
Ren lowered himself to the ground, ignoring the chill of the earth seeping through his clothes. He sat not too close, but close enough. For a long moment, they just sat in silence, the two of them under the barren tree, a father and a son separated by a universe of unspeakable history and power.
"The strings," Ren said finally, his gaze fixed on the horizon. "I haven't seen you use them before."
He felt Tianlei tense beside him. "You said not to climb," the boy said, a defensive edge to his voice.
"I did," Ren agreed. "And you didn't. You… found another way." He paused, choosing his words with the care of a man disarming a bomb. "It's a precise magic. Requires fine control."
Tianlei was silent for a while, finishing the last of the apple. He tossed the core into the bushes. "It's easy. It feels… like it's always been there. Like a part of me I just remembered how to use."
"They're afraid of it," Tianlei stated, not looking at him. "Mom is afraid, she is worried but she isn't saying anything except for telling me to choose the right path."
Ren's breath caught. There was no self-pity in the statement, only a cold observation. It was the truth, and they both knew it.
Ren turned his head to look at his son fully. "She are not afraid of you, Tianlei. She is afraid for you. The power inside you… it is vast and it is wild. It has a will of its own. They worry it will… consume you." He took a deep breath. "I worry it will consume you."
Tianlei finally met his gaze. His eyes, so like his mother's in shape, held a depth of shadows that belonged solely to Ren. "Are you afraid of me, Dad?"
The question hung in the cold air, simple and devastating. Ren looked into the face of his child, this beautiful, broken boy who carried his own cursed legacy, and he knew his answer had to be the absolute truth.
"No," Ren said, his voice low and steady, filled with a conviction that came from the very core of his being. "I am not afraid of you. I am in awe of you. And I am terrified of failing you."
For the first time, the guarded wall in Tianlei's eyes seemed to waver. A flicker of something vulnerable, something young and unsure, shone through. He looked away, pulling his knees up to his chest.
"I don't know what the 'right path' is," Tianlei mumbled into his knees. "Everyone talks about it, but no one will tell me what it looks like. They just tell me what not to do."
Ren's heart broke anew. He understood that feeling all too well—the burden of expectation, the pressure of a destiny you never asked for.
"The 'right path'…" Ren began slowly, "...is not a single road. It is a choice you make, every day, with every breath. It is the choice to use that power," he gestured to Tianlei's hands, "to protect, to create, to understand… even when every instinct, every ounce of that darkness, screams at you to destroy, to dominate, to take." He leaned forward slightly, his voice intense. "It is the hardest path there is. And you will not always walk it perfectly. I know I haven't."
Tianlei was listening, his head still tucked, but Ren could feel his attention.
"I cannot tell you the way, son," Ren said, his voice thick with emotion. "I can only walk beside you for as long as you will allow me. And I can promise you that no matter what path you choose, no matter how far you stray, I will never stop trying to find you. I will never be afraid of you. And I will never, ever stop loving you."
The silence that followed was different from before. It was no longer empty or hostile. It was filled with the weight of Ren's promise, a vow spoken into the cold winter air, meant to be a shield against the coming storms.
Tianlei didn't reply. He didn't throw his arms around his father or offer any easy forgiveness. But he didn't pull away either. He simply sat, his small body curled next to his father's, under the barren apple tree, the space between them feeling, for the first time in a very long time, just a little bit smaller.