"You're thinking too loud again," Kael grunted.
Before I could process the shift in his stance, he sidestepped my strike and swept my legs out from under me. I hit the dirt hard, the impact knocking the wind out of my lungs in a sharp rush.
I lay there for a second, staring up at the canopy of the forest, before Kael offered a calloused hand and hauled me to my feet. He was one of the clan's best hunters, nearing thirty, with a calm, steady presence that made him impossible to read in a fight.
"Your alignment was perfect," Kael offered, tossing me a waterskin. "But I saw that punch forming in your eyes three seconds before you threw it. You're treating the spar like a math equation."
I wiped the dust from my knees, frustrated. "If the angle, speed, and force are correct, the result should be guaranteed."
Kael laughed, a warm, booming sound that made a few of the other hunters at the edge of the clearing smile. "Fights aren't guaranteed, kid. They're messy. You can't just calculate a person; you have to feel their intent." He ruffled my hair, ignoring my attempt to duck away. "You're getting faster, though. Go home and rest."
Those moments made the difference clear. My skill and movement were improving, but trying to overpower fully grown adults with logic alone was pointless. I needed to refine everything else.
But while my physical training continued, a much larger problem occupied my thoughts: the scarlet eyes.
Among the Kurta, the eyes were not something people worried about constantly. They appeared only under extreme emotion. The only time the matter became serious was when someone planned to leave the village and had to face the elders' test.
I had watched a teenager named Rian take the test just weeks ago. After the healers administered the special eye drops, the elders had spent hours aggressively questioning and insulting Rian, trying to break his composure.
"He lasted three hours," my friend whispered to me from the sidelines that day, looking terrified. "If the eyes turn scarlet even once, they stay that way for twenty-four hours. I don't think I'll ever be able to pass."
"He let their words get to him," I had replied quietly. "He tried to push the anger down instead of letting it pass through him."
The clan's approach was entirely defensive: avoid the trigger, avoid the emotion. I had no intention of relying on avoidance.
But to test my own theories, I needed supplies.
The next day, I paid a visit to old man Varis, the clan's healer. He eyed me suspiciously from across his cluttered wooden table when I asked for dried belladonna, foxglove, and a few other specific roots.
"These aren't for scraped knees," Varis muttered, tapping his wooden cane against the floorboards. "Too much of this will make your heart race out of your chest. What exactly are you brewing, boy?"
"An endurance tonic," I lied smoothly, keeping my face perfectly neutral. "Kael said my stamina needs work."
Varis grumbled, clearly unconvinced, but he began measuring out the herbs anyway. "Don't come crying to me when you puke your dinner up. And keep these away from the younger kids."
With the herbs secured, I began my experiments in the quiet of my room. The process was slow and methodical. Most attempts produced little of value—some herbs simply caused mild nausea, while others increased my heartbeat without affecting my mental state.
But after weeks of tweaking the proportions, one combination finally produced the reaction I was looking for.
The sensation started with a heavy pressure behind my eyes. Not pain, but a deep, building heat. My breathing sharpened. I leaned over the table, staring down at my reflection in a bowl of water I kept nearby for this exact purpose.
Scarlet.
I sat there, mesmerized by the glowing crimson in the water. I wasn't just watching it; I was memorizing the state. The exact rhythm of my pulse, the tightness in my chest.
Knock, knock.
I flinched. Before I could blink the color away, my mother pushed the door open. She was carrying a tray of stew, the steam carrying the rich scent of wild rosemary.
She paused in the doorway, her eyes narrowing as she looked at me. "Your face is flushed. Are you coming down with a fever?"
She set the tray down and immediately pressed the back of her cool hand to my forehead. The gentle, maternal touch was entirely grounding, snapping me out of the intense, clinical headspace I had been trapped in. The heat behind my eyes began to recede.
"I'm fine, really," I said, leaning back slightly to look at my reflection. Normal. Brown.
She sighed, looking down at the mortar and pestle, and the stack of medical texts beside my bed. "Your father says you've been badgering the traveling merchants for more of these books. And Varis complained to me this morning that you cleared out his stock of bitter-root."
"They're just for studying," I said, pulling the bowl of stew closer.
She sat on the edge of my bed, brushing a stray lock of hair out of my eyes. Her expression was a mix of pride and worry. "Most children your age are out playing by the river, not turning their bedrooms into apothecaries. You don't have to grow up so fast."
"I know," I said softly, looking down at my hands. "But I want to understand how we work. How I work."
She smiled faintly. "Just make sure you don't forget to actually live while you're so busy studying life, okay?"
"I won't," I promised.
Over the following months, her words stayed with me. I realized that my initial approach had been too mechanical, just like my fighting style with Kael. The scarlet eyes weren't just a biological switch to be flipped by herbs. They were tied to my humanity.
Eventually, I stopped using Varis's herbs entirely. I began sitting quietly after training, closing my eyes, and recalling the exact physical sensations. I would think of the heat, the pressure, the intense rush of adrenaline. I would think of Kael's booming laugh, my mother's worried touch, the heavy expectations of the elders.
One evening, I focused on that precise boundary—the line between calm and overwhelming emotion. I didn't push the emotion away. I invited it in, held it, and controlled it.
When I opened my eyes and looked into the bowl of water, the reflection answered back.
Scarlet.
The clan believed the only way to survive was to suppress who we were. But I had finally found another path. Once you understood exactly where the threshold was, you didn't have to run from it.
You could simply choose when to cross it.