Morning came with that sort of stillness that impresses itself upon the skin long before the mind wakes up to it, a silence not so much of the absence of noise but of the presence of something that held its breath. Kael stirred slowly, uneasy sleep clinging to him like damp mist. He had swum during his sleep through fragmented bits of recollection and long, dark blurs wherein silhouettes of strange things lingered at the edges of his perception; none came with clarity, yet each left a faint ripple of discomfort in its wake. He sat up, blowing out in a long breath, forcing the last remnants of the dream to unwind.
His room was as he had left it the night before, the sparse arrangement of furniture undisturbed. Yet the air seemed heavier, as if it carried particles too small to perceive and too big to disregard. Kael dressed with deliberate care, hoping the routine would overcome tension that clung to him. When he left his room for the corridor, the sun had barely risen but was already tentatively staining the stone passage with a pale, mute gold deepening the shadows along the walls.
The refectory was all but deserted when he arrived. Two novices sat at the far table, speaking in hushed tones too quiet to make out. They looked continually toward the windows, as if expecting something to materialize beyond the panes at any instant. Kael paid them no mind and took up his breakfast-seating himself near the middle, where the morning light came through most clearly. The bread was hot, the broth aromatic, but every bite seemed curiously insubstantial, as if his sense of taste had gone dull, along with the rest of his perceptions.
A few minutes later, Brion entered, stretching and yawning with exaggerated irritation. "You'd think the beds here were made of thorns," he muttered as he dropped into the seat next to Kael. "I dreamed someone was tapping a stone right next to my ear all night."
"Maybe you're imagining things," Kael said in a low tone of voice, but the comment carried little conviction.
Brion glanced at him, then leaned in closer. "You look like you barely slept. Still sensing whatever it was from yesterday?
"I don't know if sensing is the right word," Kael murmured. "It's more like… noticing something missing."
Brion frowned at that. "Missing how?"
Kael looked for an explanation but found none that made any sense. "I'll explain when I can put it into words."
"Fair enough," Brion said softly. "But don't try to handle it all alone. Shared confusion is better than silent confusion."
Despite the heaviness of the morning, that line coaxed a faint, reluctant smile from Kael.
With the bell's ringing, they exited the refectory and moved toward the central courtyard, where the day's instructions were given. The white stone flags in the courtyard reflected back the steady morning light; several instructors stood near the fountain at the center, talking in low tones. Avel was among them, her expression considering. She stepped forward as she noticed the crowd gathering.
"Today's session continues the perceptive training," she said, her voice composed and steady. "We will adjust the focus, however. Yesterday's exercises introduced you to the surface layer of the world around you. Today, you will try to sense subtle distortions-not for success today, but to familiarize yourselves with the idea that the world seldom faces you without its hidden currents."
A murmur arose from the group.
"You will work in rotating pairs this time," she said next. "Each rotation will last an hour. For some of you, training with new partners will be uncomfortable, but often, the first gate to clarity is through a threshold of discomfort."
Kael exchanged a glance with Brion; a mixture of resignation and curiosity passed between them before they parted ways to form the small circle of shuffled pairs. His first partner was a quiet girl named Seris, known for her exceptional memory. She greeted him with a polite nod and followed Avel's instructions without complaint.
Avel directed them toward a cluster of trees near the western edge of the grounds, where patches of filtered sunlight created a shifting pattern on the soil. The air here was cooler, with an earthy scent of damp roots and old bark.
"For this exercise," Avel explained to the group spread across the grove, "you will walk slowly through the space, stopping whenever you feel an interruption in the natural rhythm. Don't question if your intuition is correct; simply acknowledge any moment when the flow feels different."
Seris started walking beside him, her gait even, meditative. Kael kept his senses open, letting his breathing settle into the slow pace of their movement. There was something almost comforting about the quiet of the grove; beneath that comfort, though, he sensed a faint dissonance. The ground felt softer, at times, where it shouldn't have, and there were patches of air carrying unexpected warmth. None of these inconsistencies were strong enough to stand out sharply, but each carried the same dull echo he had noticed the previous day.
"Do you sense something?" Seris asked without turning her head.
His response was slow in coming. "There are minor irregularities. I don't know if that's normal."
Musing, Seris hummed, "I'm feeling something, too, but I don't know what. It's like. well, losing your balance for a second.
They passed further into the grove, stopping every time the slightest movement came into their notice. Avel moved among them, correcting someone's stance here, telling another to breathe more deeply there. Coming to Kael, she studied him a moment before speaking.
"You're detecting more than most," she said. "But you're treating it like a threat. That tension interferes with clarity."
Kael nodded slowly. "It feels like something's pressing in at the edges."
"It may be your mind responding to new sensations," Avel said. "Or it may be something else. Keep watching without prejudice to the signs.
Seris turned a sympathetic eye his way when Avel had moved off. "No wonder you look exhausted," she whispered.
When the hour was finished, the pairs rotated. His new partner was Tomas, a tall boy who was often impatient, quick to abandon something if it was beyond his comprehension. The exercise was challenging with him, because he didn't have the patience to listen for the subtlety of change. The short walk they took through the grove was disjointed, and Kael found himself struggling most of the time to bite back his frustration.
The next rotation brought him to Eila, a soft-spoken girl with sharp perceptive talent. It was easier to work with her; her calm presence balanced the tension coiling through his awareness. She pointed out several inconsistencies Kael hadn't noticed, including a strange sensation of breathless air lingering between two trees.
With the fourth rotation, his head ached a little. Sensory training of this nature required a kind of attention he wasn't accustomed to keeping for hours. By the time Brion finally became his partner in the final session, relief settled over him.
"You look like you're going to fall over," Brion said, steadying Kael with a hand to his shoulder.
"It's been a long morning," Kael replied. "How did your sessions go?"
"Uneventful. Most partners couldn't sense anything beyond the temperature changing."
Kael rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I'll take that over feeling like something's crawling around beneath the surface of the ground."
Brion's smile faltered. "Still there?"
"Yes," he said quietly, "Still there."
They started the exercise again, pacing through the grove slowly. The pattern of sunlight across the ground began to shift and change, breaking into long patches of brightness with swathes of shadow. The faint echoes beneath the earth grew more distinct, threading themselves through the soil like thin, vibrating lines of a fabric. Kael stopped several times, focusing on the sensation until his pulse steadied.
Brion watched him closely. "Whatever it is you're picking up, it's getting stronger, isn't it?"
Kael nodded. "I think so. And I don't know why."
"Well," Brion said, "if the instructors knew what was going on they'd probably tell us. So maybe it's something only you can pick up."
It was neither a comforting nor alarming concept, but it stayed with Kael as he walked, and when Avel finally dismissed them for the day, Kael felt an unfamiliar ache at the base of his skull, as though the training had cut new channels through his awareness that had not yet learned how to settle.
Avel came to him again as the others dispersed. "You're responding to the exercises more sharply than expected," she said. "Do not push yourself too quickly. Heightened perception can become a burden before it becomes a skill."
"I'll be careful," Kael said.
Avel studied his face a moment longer, then replied, "I believe you will try. That is not quite the same thing."
He didn't argue; she knew him too well.
On the way back to the residential halls, Brion kept shooting him glances. "Are you going to say exactly what you sense, or are you waiting until it becomes some kind of drama?
Kael watched as a group of initiates crossed the courtyard before them, his eyes narrowing in thought. "It is like a thread that does not belong. Something small, almost not there, yet tugging with persistence on things around it.
Brion's steps slowed. "And it's been like this since the mirror?"
"Yes."
His friend huffed loudly. "We should tell somebody.
"I don't even know what it is," Kael replied. "I'll talk to the Archivist once I understand more. Until then, there's nothing to report."
Brion obviously wanted to argue, but after a moment he let the matter drop.
They parted ways again at the hall entrance. Kael returned to his room, though he did not sit on his cot this time. Instead he stood at the window, watching the shadows stretch across the grounds. The world outside looked peaceful—sunlit grass, steady wind, distant figures moving through the campus—but the faint dissonance lingered beneath it all, a quiet thread twisting through the familiar. He leaned against the window frame and let his breathing slow. It was then that there was a subtle shift, so slight he almost missed it-the hollowness sharpened, aligning itself as if in response to his attention. The air around him cooled slightly, and a fine tremor ran through the floor. Kael straightened, his grip on the window frame tightening. Whatever was beneath the surface of his senses wasn't random. It was aware of him, or at least reacting to him, and the realization settled over his skin like a cold shadow. This was no longer something he could dismiss as imagination. The thread he had sensed since the incident with the mirror was not drifting aimlessly. It was tightening.