The morning after the Sacrifice of Breath, Caelan woke to find his body felt different in ways he couldn't quite articulate. Stronger, yes—that was obvious. But also more *present*, as if he'd been only partially real before and had now solidified into full existence. The Life Current flowed through him like a second bloodstream, connecting him to the living world in ways that made his previous isolation seem like a half-remembered dream.
Trouble was already awake, attempting to eat one of Caelan's boots with single-minded determination.
"No," Caelan said, pulling the boot away. The shell-drake made an indignant chirping sound but didn't resist, instead turning its attention to a particularly interesting spot on the moss floor that apparently required immediate investigation.
"Your companion has the attention span of a seed-spore," Verik observed from the entrance. He looked tired but satisfied, the kind of expression that came from completing an important task successfully. "The hunt begins at mid-morning. You'll join the other new adults and three experienced hunters. We track, we coordinate, we kill, and we bring meat back to the village. Simple."
"Nothing about that sounds simple," Caelan said, lacing up his boot—the one Trouble hadn't managed to damage.
"Good. You're learning." Verik tossed him a water gourd. "Drink. Eat. The hunt waits for no one, and you'll need your strength. We're tracking razor-horn today."
"What's a razor-horn?"
Verik's grin was not reassuring. "You'll see."
-----
The hunting party assembled near the village edge as the morning mist began to lift. Besides Caelan and Verik, there were six others: Siara and two other initiates from the Sacrifice ceremony—a quiet boy named Dorin and a girl with silver-tinted skin called Mira. The three experienced hunters were an older woman named Kessa who moved like water through the undergrowth, a broad-shouldered man called Thane whose arms were marked with scars from previous hunts, and a younger hunter named Perl who carried more weapons than seemed strictly necessary.
"New adults," Kessa said, her voice carrying the weight of authority, "today you prove your worth. We hunt as one, we move as one, we kill as one. Individual glory is for fools who want to die young. Understood?"
The initiates murmured agreement. Caelan noticed that Dorin looked nervous, Mira looked determined, and Siara looked like she was trying very hard not to laugh at Caelan's expression when Trouble tried to follow them and had to be firmly redirected back to the village by a patient elder.
"Razor-horn travel in small packs," Verik explained as they moved into the forest. "Usually three to five adults. They're grazers, but don't let that fool you—they're aggressive when threatened and their hide is thick enough to turn aside most spear-points. The name comes from the bone ridges on their heads." He gestured to his own forehead. "Sharp enough to gut you if they charge. We target the weak points: eyes, throat, the soft tissue behind the front legs. Anywhere else and you're just making them angry."
They tracked for two hours, following signs that Caelan was only beginning to recognize. Broken branches at a specific height. Unusual wear patterns in the moss. The faint chemical signatures that his enhanced vision could detect but that the others seemed to sense through the Life Current itself.
"There," Thane whispered, pointing through the undergrowth.
Caelan saw them and understood immediately why they were called razor-horn. The creatures were massive—easily the size of water buffalo, but built lower to the ground with four thick legs that ended in clawed feet. Their hide was a mottled green-grey that blended with the forest floor, covered in overlapping plates that looked more like stone than skin. The heads were dominated by a crown of bone ridges that swept back from the skull in sharp, overlapping layers. Three adults grazed in a small clearing, using their ridges to scrape bark from trees and expose the soft inner wood.
"We separate one from the group," Kessa murmured. "Thane, Perl, you drive from the east. Verik, Mira, you take west. Dorin, Siara, Caelan—you're with me. We wait in the center and make the kill when they drive it to us. Questions?"
"How do we kill it?" Dorin asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
"Throat or eyes," Kessa said. "The hide everywhere else is too thick. You'll get one chance—maybe two if you're lucky. Make them count."
The hunting party split, moving with practiced silence through the undergrowth. Caelan found himself crouched between Siara and Dorin, his spear-bow ready, his heart hammering in his chest. Through the Life Current, he could sense the razor-horn as patient, ancient presences—herbivores, yes, but predators in their own right when threatened.
The attack came from the east. Thane and Perl emerged from the trees with weapons raised and voices calling in sharp, coordinated patterns. The razor-horn reacted immediately—two of them charged east, lowering their crowned heads for devastating impact. But the third, an older individual with scars across its plated hide, turned west and ran.
Right toward where Kessa's group waited.
"Now!" Kessa commanded.
Caelan raised his spear-bow and fired. The projectile struck the razor-horn's shoulder—and bounced off the thick hide without penetrating. Beside him, Dorin's shot went wide, panic making his aim falter. Only Siara's projectile found purchase, embedding itself in the soft tissue near the creature's front leg.
The razor-horn bellowed—a sound like stone grinding against stone—and charged them.
Kessa moved first, rolling aside with practiced grace. Siara followed, her movements fluid. But Dorin froze, his eyes wide with terror, and Caelan was too close to dodge without leaving the boy exposed.
So he didn't dodge.
The razor-horn hit him like a battering ram, and for a moment, all Caelan knew was pain and the sensation of flying backward through the air. He hit a tree hard enough to see stars, his ribs screaming in protest. The razor-horn turned for another charge, its eyes fixed on Dorin, who had finally remembered to move but wasn't fast enough.
Caelan pushed himself up, his vision swimming. He needed to do something, needed to stop the creature before it killed Dorin. His hands came up instinctively, reaching for his spear-bow which had been knocked away in the impact.
And his palms began to glow.
Not the soft blue bioluminescence he'd cultivated before. This was brighter, more intense, born from stress and desperation and the body's instinctive response to danger. The light pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat, bright enough to cast shadows in the forest's natural gloom.
The razor-horn hesitated, its charge faltering as the unexpected light caught its attention. That moment of confusion was all Kessa needed. She was there, her blade finding the creature's throat with surgical precision. The razor-horn stumbled, bellowed once more, and collapsed.
Silence fell over the clearing, broken only by heavy breathing and the distant sounds of the other hunting groups.
Kessa turned to look at Caelan, her expression unreadable. Beside her, Siara stared at his still-glowing hands with open curiosity. Dorin, who Caelan had saved, looked between him and the light with something that might have been awe or might have been shock.
"You can make light," Siara said finally, stating the obvious in a way that demanded explanation.
Caelan forced his hands to return to normal, the glow fading reluctantly. "I… learned it. From the fungi in the forest. I studied them and—" He gestured vaguely, unwilling to explain the full extent of his abilities. "It's not dangerous. Just light."
"Just light," Kessa repeated, her tone suggesting she didn't believe that for a second. But she didn't press. Instead, she turned to Dorin. "You froze. In a real hunt, that would have killed you. Learn from this or die next time. Understood?"
Dorin nodded mutely, his face pale.
"As for you," Kessa said to Caelan, "that was either very brave or very stupid. You took a hit meant to cripple or kill, and you're still standing. That speaks well of your durability, at least." She studied the light that still flickered faintly at the edges of his palms. "Your gifts are… unusual. But useful. We'll speak of this later. For now, help process the kill. The others will have their own razor-horn to deal with."
The other hunting groups succeeded—barely. Verik and Mira had managed to bring down their target through a combination of speed and precision strikes. Thane and Perl's razor-horn had fought harder, leaving Perl with a gash across his arm that would need attention from the village healers.
But they had three razor-horn. Three massive kills that would feed the village for days. The hunt was a success.
As the others began the work of processing the carcasses—removing the hide, sectioning the meat, harvesting the useful bones—Caelan found himself drawn to the creature that had nearly killed him. He placed his hands on its thick hide, feeling the texture, the density, the remarkable engineering that had evolved to protect the razor-horn from predators.
Information flowed into him, slower than with a data crystal but present nonetheless. He understood the layered structure of the hide, the way collagen fibers were arranged to disperse impact force. He saw how the plates interlocked, creating zones of rigidity separated by flexible connective tissue that could absorb shock. He felt the density of the creature's bones, the chemical composition that made them nearly unbreakable.
This was armor. This was protection. And he could make it his own.
But not here. Not now. Not with everyone watching.
"Caelan!" Verik called. "Stop touching the dead thing and help Perl wrap his arm. You seem to know something about healing."
Caelan pulled himself away from the razor-horn reluctantly and went to help Perl, whose arm was bleeding more than it should have been. As he worked—using clean water and plant fibers to bind the wound—he felt that familiar warmth in his chest. Not as intense as after the Sacrifice, but present. Growing. Acknowledging that he'd survived danger, protected another, contributed to the hunt's success.
He was becoming more. Step by step. Threshold by threshold.
-----
They returned to the Singing Grove in triumph, carrying the processed meat and valuable materials from the razor-horn. The village greeted them with celebration—songs that Caelan was beginning to understand, food shared freely, stories of the hunt told and retold with increasing embellishment.
But Caelan noticed the looks. The curious glances at his hands. The whispered conversations between hunters who'd heard about the light. He'd revealed something, and now people were wondering what else he could do.
Siara found him after the feast, when the celebration had begun to wind down and people were drifting toward rest.
"The light," she said without preamble. "You said you learned it from fungi. But fungi just *are* bioluminescent. They don't learn it. They're born with it. So how did you learn something that should be innate?"
Caelan considered lying. But Siara's eyes were sharp, and she'd proven herself a friend—or at least, not an enemy.
"I can adapt," he said carefully. "Study things and… incorporate what I learn. It's not common, I know. But it's what I can do."
"Incorporate," Siara repeated, testing the word. "Like the Shapers in the Canopy Cities? They can modify living wood, coax plants into new forms. Or the Bone Weavers of the Deep Root tribes, who can reshape their own skeletal structure? There are others like you, Caelan. Maybe not exactly like you, but close enough. You're not as unique as you think."
The information hit Caelan like a revelation. There were others who could modify biology? Different specializations, different approaches, but the same fundamental concept? He wasn't an impossible anomaly—he was just rare.
"I didn't know," he said honestly.
"No one told you because you're supposed to remember this yourself," Siara said, but her tone was gentle rather than accusatory. "The People develop their gifts at different ages, in different ways. Some commune with the Life Current and become healers. Others, like Verik, have an intuitive understanding of tools and mechanisms. A few can reshape flesh or bone or plant matter. It's all variations of the same connection to the living world."
"But the Spiral of Endings—"
"Is unusual," Siara admitted. "Most people don't get marked by the Life Current during the Sacrifice. And that particular mark…" She trailed off, clearly uncertain. "But unusual isn't the same as evil. You saved Dorin today. You contributed to the hunt. That counts for something."
Caelan wanted to believe her. Wanted to believe that his abilities were just another expression of this world's natural gifts. But he knew, in a way he couldn't explain, that there was more to it than that. The data crystals. The way he could modify not just himself but others. The sense that he was playing by rules nobody else understood.
But for now, he'd accept the easier explanation. It was better than the alternative.
-----
Three days after the hunt, traders arrived at the Singing Grove.
Caelan was helping Verik repair hunting equipment—learning to coax the living wood of spear-bows back into proper alignment—when the call went up. Visitors approaching from the south, bearing the markers of peaceful intent.
The village gathered to greet them, and Caelan got his first look at people from beyond the Singing Grove's territory.
They were still of the People—same basic biology, same iridescent skin—but everything else was different. Their clothing was more elaborate, woven with patterns that seemed to move and shift in the light. They carried packs made from materials Caelan didn't recognize, some kind of cultivated fiber that looked almost metallic. And they moved with the confidence of those who traveled regularly between settlements, unafraid of the forest's dangers.
There were five of them, led by a woman whose skin shifted between copper and gold, marked with deliberate scarification that formed geometric patterns across her arms and face. She greeted the village elders with a gesture Caelan didn't recognize—hands pressed together and then spread outward, like offering a gift.
"Greetings to the Singing Grove," she said, her dialect slightly different from what Caelan was used to, the vowels rounder, the consonants softer. "We come from the Skyreach territories, bearing trade goods and news. The Bloom season progresses well in our lands. We hope the same is true here."
Keeper Torvath responded with the same gesture, and conversation flowed in patterns that were half-negotiation, half-social ritual. The traders had brought preserved foods from higher altitudes, cultivated fungi that couldn't grow in the lowland forests, and seeds for plants that the Singing Grove might want to add to their growing-homes.
In exchange, they wanted specific woods, certain minerals found only in deep soil, and information about the movements of dangerous predators in the region.
But what caught Caelan's attention wasn't the trade goods. It was what he could see in the distance when he climbed to a higher vantage point to watch the proceedings.
Structures. Massive ones. Rising through the canopy in the direction the traders had come from, barely visible through the layers of forest but unmistakably there. They looked like towers, but organic—grown rather than built, reaching toward the floating islands high above.
The Canopy Cities. Real. Tangible. And suddenly, the scope of this world expanded in Caelan's mind.
The Singing Grove wasn't an isolated settlement. It was one node in a vast network. There were cities in the sky. Tribes in the deep forests. Trading routes connecting them all. A whole civilization built on principles so different from anything in his fragmented memories that it might as well be alien.
And he was just beginning to understand his place in it.
"Impressive, aren't they?" Verik said, climbing up to join Caelan. "The Skyreach territories have been building those for generations. They say the highest structures actually touch the floating islands. That people live up there in the clouds, closer to the Life Current's source than anyone else."
"Have you been there?"
"Once. When I was younger." Verik's expression turned distant. "It's… different. They have technologies we don't. Ways of shaping living matter that make our hunting tools look like children's toys. But they've lost something too. Connection to the earth. Understanding of the deep forest. Every path has its sacrifices."
Below them, the traders were unpacking their goods, and Caelan noticed something that made his enhanced vision sharpen with interest. One of them—a young man with skin that flickered between blue and violet like Caelan's own—was carrying something that looked technological in a way nothing in the Singing Grove was. It was too precise, too geometric, too *artificial*.
A device. Not grown, but built.
The young trader caught Caelan staring and smiled, holding up the object. It looked like a compass, but instead of pointing north, it had multiple needles that pointed in different directions, each glowing with a different color.
"Life Current flow detector," the trader called up in the Singing Grove dialect, though his accent was thick. "Helps us navigate between territories without getting lost. The Current flows differently in different regions—you can use that to map routes."
"Can I see it?" Caelan asked before he could stop himself.
The trader shrugged and tossed it up. Caelan caught it, nearly fumbling the catch, and examined the device closely. It was beautiful and wrong at the same time—organic materials formed into technological purposes, living sensors measuring something that should have been purely biological.
This world had technology. Just not the kind he remembered.
And somewhere, in the back of his mind, a thought crystallized: If they could build this, what else could they build? What else existed beyond the Singing Grove that he hadn't seen yet?
"Caelan!" Torvath's voice carried from below. "Stop bothering the traders and come help prepare the evening meal. They'll be staying tonight, and we owe them hospitality."
Caelan tossed the device back down—the trader caught it easily—and descended. But the image of those distant towers stayed with him. The sense that he was seeing only the smallest fragment of a much larger world.
And the growing certainty that eventually, he'd need to see more of it.
-----
That night, after the traders had been fed and housed and the village had settled into sleep, Caelan sat in Torvath's dwelling with his hands pressed against the hide he'd taken from the razor-horn.
He'd asked permission to keep a piece, claiming he wanted to study it. Torvath had allowed it with a knowing look that suggested the old man understood exactly what Caelan intended.
Now, in private, Caelan let himself fully absorb the information the hide provided.
The layered collagen structure. The shock-absorbing connective tissue. The density that could turn aside claws and teeth and spear-points. He understood it all, and more importantly, he understood how to adapt it.
Not the full armor plating—that would require too much mass, would slow him down unacceptably. But elements of it. A denser dermal layer beneath his existing skin. Modified collagen fibers that could disperse impact force. Subtle thickening in vital areas where a blow might otherwise be fatal.
He began the work slowly, carefully, learning from the mistake he'd made healing Trouble. This time, he wouldn't push past his limits. This time, he'd work within them, making incremental changes that his body could handle.
His skin didn't change visibly—he made sure of that. But beneath the surface, his biology was reorganizing itself. Becoming tougher. More resilient. Better able to survive the dangers of this world.
The warmth in his chest grew as he worked, and by the time he finished—hours later, exhausted but satisfied—he felt that he'd crossed another threshold. Become something more than he'd been.
Trouble, who'd been sleeping nearby, woke up and headbutted Caelan's leg affectionately. The shell-drake seemed to sense the changes, seemed to approve.
"Yeah," Caelan murmured, running a hand over Trouble's scaled head. "I'm getting stronger. But there's so much more I need to learn. So much more to this world than I ever imagined."
Outside, the night forest sang its eternal songs. The Life Current flowed through everything, connecting all things in patterns Caelan was only beginning to perceive. And somewhere in the distance, the Canopy Cities reached toward the sky, holding secrets and technologies and possibilities he couldn't yet comprehend.
But he would. Eventually.
One adaptation at a time. One threshold at a time. One step at a time.
Until he understood not just how to survive in this world, but how to truly live in it.
The journey had only just begun.