When the sick child died, they came for Kael.
Not with torches.
Not with blades.
Not even with blame sharpened enough to cut.
They came with confusion.
The boy lay on a low pallet in the corner of a stone house that smelled of boiled roots and old fear. His skin had cooled too quickly, the way children's did when life slipped out without struggle. A thin cloth covered him from chest to feet. His hands were folded the wrong way—fingers stiff, not yet convinced they were done being used.
Kael stood at the threshold for a long moment before stepping inside.
He had known this might happen.
He had hoped it wouldn't.
The father was kneeling at the child's side, shoulders rounded inward as if bracing against a wind no one else could feel. His voice, when it came, was hoarse and oddly polite.
"You healed others," he said. "Why not him?"
There was no accusation in the words.
Only a gap where understanding should have been.
Kael moved closer and knelt. He did not touch the boy at first. He watched the stillness, the quiet finality that came when a body decided it would not answer again.
"I don't heal," Kael said gently. "I fight."
The father's jaw tightened. His eyes were red, not from tears, but from having stared too long at something that would not change.
"But you could have tried," he said.
That was the knife.
Not shouted.
Not cursed.
Just placed carefully between them.
Kael looked up.
Expectation had sharpened into accusation—not cruel, not unfair. Human. Desperate. Searching for a place to rest its weight.
"I did try," Kael said quietly. "By not becoming something you can't escape."
The words did not land.
They couldn't.
The father rose slowly, like a man standing under water. "That doesn't make sense."
Kael nodded. "I know."
Around them, others gathered. Neighbors. Relatives. People Kael had helped once, or twice, or not at all. Their faces were drawn tight with grief and uncertainty, eyes flicking between the dead child and the man they had come to associate with endings.
A woman spoke up, carefully. "You brought him back," she said. "The other one. The boy who wouldn't wake."
Kael felt the old ache settle behind his eyes.
"That wasn't healing," he replied. "That was interruption. Whatever touched him hadn't finished."
"And this?" the father demanded, voice cracking now. "What touched my son?"
Kael hesitated.
The truth was ugly and useless.
"Nothing," he said. "Sometimes the body just… stops."
Silence followed.
It was not hostile.
It was worse.
Disappointment rearranging itself.
"You didn't even try," someone muttered.
Kael turned toward the voice.
"I tried," he said, louder now. Not angry. Firm. "I listened. I watched. I waited for something to fight."
"There's always something," the father snapped. "You fight monsters. You fight gods."
"I fight threats," Kael replied. "Things that take without asking. Things that can be ended."
He gestured to the child.
"This wasn't that."
The father laughed once, a raw, broken sound. "So he just… doesn't matter?"
Kael flinched.
"That's not what I said."
"That's what it feels like," the father said, stepping closer. His hands were shaking now, fists clenching and unclenching as if searching for something to grab. "You were here. You were right here."
Kael rose slowly, matching the man's height, keeping his posture open, his hands visible. Diplomacy was not about words. It was about not escalating the wrong moment.
"I'm sorry," Kael said. "I truly am."
The father's eyes searched his face desperately. "If you're not what we thought—if you can't fix this—then what are you for?"
The question struck deeper than any blade.
Kael answered anyway.
"I'm for the things that don't stop," he said. "The ones that grow, and hunt, and come back. I'm for the moments when choosing not to act means more people die tomorrow."
He paused, then added softly, "I can't fight this. And if I pretend I can, you'll lose more than your son."
The father staggered back as if struck.
"You let him die," he whispered.
Kael did not deny it.
"No," he said. "I let you keep your world."
That earned him nothing.
The father turned away, collapsing back beside the body, hands pressed to his face. The room filled with quiet sounds—breathing, grief, the small helpless noises people made when something ended without meaning.
Kael stepped back.
No one stopped him.
No one thanked him.
Outside, the village felt smaller than it had days ago. The air heavier. The unspoken agreement fractured.
This was the cost of refusing divinity.
Not hatred.
Disillusionment.
Kael walked to the river and washed his hands, even though they were already clean. He scrubbed anyway, watching the water carry nothing away.
He had saved them from monsters.
He had refused to save them from loss.
That was the line.
And now they stood on the other side of it, staring at him not as a solution, but as a reminder.
Kael looked once toward the houses behind him—toward the people who would now have to grieve without an answer, without a miracle, without something to blame that could be killed.
Then he turned and left before nightfall.
Because the father would never understand.
And because understanding would not bring the child back.
But if Kael stayed—
Soon they would ask him to try again.
And then again.
Until grief demanded a god.
And Kael would rather be hated than become one.