The blood had dried into dark flakes along Kael's arms and chest, but the cut across his ribs throbbed with every step. He walked alone, further from the disciples' quarters than he'd ever dared before.
Each breath was a jagged reminder.
Each heartbeat, a drumbeat of fury.
But something in him whispered not to return to the barracks.
Instead, his feet took him to the edge of the sect, where the moss grew thick and the air carried the scent of crushed leaves and crushed secrets.
The Herbalist's Hut
The hut looked abandoned at first glance—twisted wood, cracked roof tiles, silence wrapped around it like cobwebs.
Then he heard it.
The gentle clang of a pestle in mortar.
Inside, a small fire glowed.
Her back was turned to him, but her presence was unmistakable.
"Sit," she said.
No questions. No greetings.
Just a voice like rain on old stone.
Blind, But Not Unseeing
She wore a simple robe. Hair greyed by years, not styled for beauty. A cloth was tied across her eyes—old, stained, faded.
Kael frowned. "You're blind."
"Yes," she replied, reaching for a jar before he could speak again. "But you're bleeding."
He didn't argue.
She dabbed his wound with something that stung far worse than it should have.
"You fight like a starving wolf," she murmured. "And yet… there is something older beneath your fists."
Kael grunted. "I was taught by pain."
"No," she said softly. "You were carved by it. Like stone beaten into shape by wind."
A Hidden Art
She said nothing more until the bandages were wrapped.
Then, with deliberate care, she placed a small wooden scroll in his hand.
Kael looked down.
The characters were old. Carved—not written. The kind passed by hands, not parchment.
"The Feral Sutras," she said. "A martial art not taught, but remembered. From before the sects ruled men."
He stared at her, suspicious. "Why give this to me?"
She smiled without joy.
"Because the soil has already tasted your blood. And it's hungry."
Whispers of More
As he left, she called after him:
"Come again when the wound festers—not on your body, but your spirit."
Kael paused.
The wind stirred the trees.
And in the silence, something else whispered from within the scroll.
A soundless howl.
**
Kael now carries the first trace of an ancient, long-buried martial path—something not passed down by sects or schools, but by the earth and the bones it buried.