The summons came as dusk spilled across the tower.
Not from a herald. Not from a whisper through the walls.
Just a folded slip of grey parchment, tucked under Kael's cot. His name inked in the sigil language—rough, hastily done. Not meant to impress.
Just meant to reach him.
He found her in one of the upper-level sparring chambers, stripped of its usual armaments. The moonlight cast sharp angles across the flagstones. Eline stood near the window, arms folded, boots planted with military precision.
She didn't look up when he entered.
"I didn't call you here for an apology," she said.
Kael leaned against the doorframe. "Didn't bring one."
That earned him a glance—brief, appraising. Cold as always.
"You're being assigned to my next field run."
Kael blinked. "I am?"
"I didn't request you," she said quickly. "The assignment came down from Whitmer. Or Vann. Or whoever decides which knives to throw first."
"Lucky me."
She stepped closer, just enough that the air between them felt tense.
"You're unstable," she said bluntly. "Raw. Unreliable."
He felt Tenebris twitch at the insult.
Eline continued, "I don't need liabilities in the field. You make mistakes, and people die."
Kael straightened. "So why am I here?"
Her gaze didn't flinch. "Because I want you to find a way not to be."
Silence.
"You want me to back out," he said.
"Or get injured," she replied, without blinking. "Or do something stupid enough to get reassigned. I don't care how."
Kael stepped forward, just once. "Why? You're not afraid of me."
"No," she said. "But I don't work with people I can't predict."
A pause.
"And you? You wear a mask even your shadow can't read."
She turned without another word and left him standing in moonlight.
Ser Whitmer's training room was nothing like the rest of the compound.
The walls were unfinished stone, heavy with dust and damp. No wards hummed in the corners. No neat sigil charts lined the shelves.
Just a cracked chalkboard, a long wooden table, and a single cot in the corner—unmade.
Whitmer sat cross-legged on the floor, cloak bundled behind his back, cane resting across his knees. His left leg didn't bend properly.
Kael stood awkwardly at the entrance.
"Sit, boy," Whitmer rasped.
Kael obeyed.
The man looked like a ruin given voice. White hair hanging in uneven patches. Eyes like flint. Every part of him looked like it had once bled and never quite scabbed over.
"You been in a fight?" he asked.
"With Eline."
A dry chuckle. "Then you didn't fight. You survived."
Kael smirked. "Is this where you teach me to be like her?"
Whitmer met his gaze. "No. It's where I teach you how to be you. And survive that."
Kael blinked.
Whitmer unspooled a small thread of black waxed cord and set it on the floor.
"This," he said, "is a Whispercoil."
Kael frowned. "It's a string."
"Shut up and watch."
Whitmer tapped the cord three times—light, then hard, then twisted. The cord lifted from the floor like a snake rising from sleep. A faint shimmer ran along its surface.
"Gesture casting," Whitmer said. "The first and least flashy part of Whispercraft. Sigils that don't glow. Words that don't echo. Power that doesn't want to be seen."
Kael leaned closer. The cord swayed toward him.
"It's listening," Whitmer said.
"To me?"
"To everything."
Kael reached out. His fingers brushed it. A faint buzz licked his skin.
"And now," Whitmer whispered, "we teach it to lie."
Two hours passed like falling through thorns.
Kael failed.
Again.
And again.
His gestures were too sharp. His intent too loud. Tenebris kept wanting to take over, to muscle magic into place like breaking ribs.
"You think power comes from the thing inside you?" Whitmer snapped. "It doesn't. It comes from silence. From control."
Kael snapped, "Easy for you to say."
Whitmer's cane slammed down beside him—hard enough to crack stone.
"I've had to bury half my team because they thought shadows made them clever," Whitmer growled. "You want to survive out there? You learn how to shut up your soul long enough to hear the world whisper back."
Kael clenched his jaw. "You think I want this thing inside me? Tenebris? You think I'm not already trying to survive?"
Whitmer's face darkened.
Then—softly, almost kindly—he said, "You're already bleeding, boy. Just not from wounds."
Kael fell silent.
Whitmer reached into his coat and pulled out an old brass coin. He tossed it onto the table.
It landed face-up. The Veilbound mark.
"You're not the first," Whitmer said. "And you won't be the last."
Kael stared at it. "You were one of them?"
"No," Whitmer said. "But I trained some who were. Before the Crown decided Veilbound were too dangerous to trust. Too unpredictable. Too… free."
Kael touched the coin. "What happened to them?"
Whitmer didn't smile.
"They stopped whispering," he said. "And started screaming."
Later that night, Kael sat alone in the empty chamber with the shattered Veilbound mosaic.
He stared at the broken tiles.
Tenebris shifted in his chest like a dream unravelling.
You are not her. Not Whitmer. Not them.
Kael let his shadow stretch across the floor—testing it, quietly.
When he pressed two fingers together and breathed slowly, the darkness trembled.
Not in hunger.
In response.
You're listening, he thought.
The shadow did not reply.
But it didn't turn away.