The village didn't speak of the fire directly—not at first.
But the whispers began that same night. Behind shutters. Between market stalls. Along the dirt paths winding toward the fields.
"He's just a Bearer, isn't he?"
"Did you see what he did?"
"Not even Tarran could stop it…"
Kael didn't listen to the noise. He had already moved on.
---
The journals doubled in number.
He mapped every element of that moment. The temperature. The wind speed. The way the fire behaved—its recoil, its hesitation, the slight instability before collapse. He had confirmed three things:
1. The Weave responded to thought even without chant.
2. Essence could be bent, even without Pattern-born resonance.
3. He had been seen.
That last one was the only problem.
---
Three days later, Kael was summoned to the elder's hall.
It wasn't a temple or a seat of power. Just a squat stone room with a worn-out rug and shelves full of dusty relics.
The village elder, Thomrel, waited behind a crooked desk. His beard was thick with silver, and his eyes sharper than age should allow.
Kael stood before him without flinching.
Thomrel tapped his cane once. "What you did in the square," he said, "was not natural."
Kael didn't answer.
The elder leaned forward. "I know Talents. I've seen enough children burn themselves trying to control their gift. You didn't flare Essence. You folded it. That was crafted. Precise. Something taught—or… learned."
Still, Kael said nothing.
"Do you have a Pattern, Kael?"
"No."
"Then how?"
Kael tilted his head slightly. "I watched. I studied. I replicated."
The old man blinked once.
Then he laughed.
A quiet, raspy sound.
"You remind me of someone," Thomrel said. "There was a Learner once—long ago. A man who built his Weave from blood and sand. They say he challenged the gods. They say he died screaming."
Kael's eyes didn't waver. "Then they didn't study him hard enough."
The elder stopped smiling.
"You need to be careful," he said. "People fear what they don't understand. And what you did? That was impossible."
Kael turned to go.
"Kael," Thomrel said. "One more thing."
He paused.
"Don't stop."
---
That night, Kael lit a flame in his palm—without chalk. Without words.
It hovered gently above his skin, cool to the touch. A false flame. Controlled. Shaped.
He extinguished it with a flick of his fingers and turned to the stack of blank pages beside him.
His next goal: motion.
Fire was simple. Static. The first frontier of Essence control.
But motion—projecting, bending, shaping energy through the air—was the work of an advanced Talent.
He intended to surpass it.
---
Two weeks passed.
Tarran didn't speak to Kael anymore. He avoided him in the square. He stopped showing off at the well. For a boy who had always basked in attention, silence clung to him like shame.
Others watched Kael now—adults with careful eyes, children with awe.
Some looked at him with fear.
One, however, looked with something else.
---
She appeared at the edge of the market just before dusk—tall, hooded, and alone. Her clothes were simple, but clean. Not local. Her boots bore no dust. Her eyes, when they swept the village, held a weight Kael recognized.
Observation.
Calculation.
She walked with purpose. She asked few questions. And when she finally spoke, it was to the elder.
Kael saw them meet behind the hall. He didn't hear the conversation, but he didn't need to.
The next day, she appeared at his door.
---
Maela opened it.
The stranger stood straight, her hands behind her back. "I'd like to speak to your son."
Maela blinked. "About?"
"I saw the fire."
Silence.
Kael stepped out behind his mother, eyes narrowing slightly. "Who are you?"
The woman pulled back her hood.
She was young. No older than twenty. Her skin held a faint glow, like something washed in starlight. Her eyes shimmered faintly violet. Unnatural. Beautiful.
"My name is Lyssa," she said. "And you just did something the High Families have spent generations claiming was impossible."
Kael stared at her.
Then stepped outside and closed the door behind him.