The breaths were shallow and panicked. Sweat beaded and trickled down from his forehead like a leaking water pipe from an abandoned building.
Cal stared at the light that shone from his hands, believing that all of this was a dream too.
It had to be, right?
What the hell? What is...
The thin strands continued to move loosely from his palms, like slow ripples from a river. Cal's gaze drifted between his hands, then Vincent's sleeping form. Then the door that led to the outside of the room.
Back to his hands.
Vincent.
The door.
This rapid change continued on for about a minute or two. Maybe less. Cal didn't know at this point. He stared at his hands like they were something unearthly.
What was that?
Cal could barely maintain his gaze on anything, and trying to remember the dream from moments earlier was ever more strenuous.
But was it a dream? It felt too real.
That voice... It sounded like my own. But only... hollower. I couldn't tell if it was from a person.
Cal tried to think. That voice which had warned him to call upon "it".
But what was "it"?
The final words came rushing in like a tsunami that was hurled by the wrath of the world itself. As if was too much for one to even bear.
Blightless Dominion... Was that the voice? A human didn't speak to me... and I didn't see anyone.
Then a feeling came over his mind like an ominous cloud that blocked out the sun's rays and warmth.
Am I like... that man from the tunnel?
The mere thought made Cal shudder and nauseous. No way. There's no way that he was something so... vile.
Repugnant. Filthy. Inhuman.
Wrong.
Right?
Should I wake someone up? Maybe granddad can help...
A pause. Then Cal shook his head. No idea in his mind sounded more unlikely than this.
Like hell... Granddad would call me a freak. He'd...
Silence. The weight pressed in on him. Cal exhaled sharply, frustration coiling tight in his chest —frustration that the one person who should understand him would never even try.
Because it was all about keeping them away from the world. The world he has a right to see for himself.
Just as Cal's sight drifted back to his hands, he noticed that the light had started to diminish in its vibrancy. The strands slowly began to shorten in their length, and the brightness began to dim into something unrecognizable.
Cal blinked, only to then see that it was all gone. His hands looked normal, as if this dream he just had didn't come to pass.
As if this hadn't happened in the first place.
Cal's head turned all around the room, wondering if anything else had contributed to the unnaturalistic nature of the past moments.
Nothing. No shadow out of place. No sound out of tune.
No anomalies at all. None.
His stare drifted back to Vincent. The urge to shake him awake — to spill everything in a frantic, breathless rush — tugged at him so hard it bordered on maddening.
Cal reached out, fingertips inches from Vincent's shoulder.
His breath hitched. His hand hovered, trembling.
Should I?
The silent question gnawed at him like a parasite that slowly but surely feasted on his insides. The feeling was racking.
Damn it all...
------
He didn't really sleep after the dream. Ha had kept his eyes open and stared into nothingness until the walls and ceiling had blurred. Every time he tried to close his eyes, the ambiguity and fear from everything he had witnessed began to flood his thoughts and fill him with an irritability that should have driven him mad.
Breakfast had already been set when Cal walked into the kitchen. Vincent and Darius had already sat themselves at the table, seemingly waiting for Cal to wake up from his slumber. Or rather, the lack of it.
Vincent stared at Cal's face, already halfway to asking why Cal had looked so miserable. Cal shook his head before the words could come out, silencing Vincent.
No more words passed between the two of them at the moment.
Cal hesitated before taking his usual seat, while Vincent gave a look that resembled a half-hearted attempt at reassurance.
Bread, butter, and porridge were placed in plates and bowls on the table, and the sight of them did nothing to Cal's lack of hunger. He hadn't eaten since the argument. His stomach was empty, needing something to fill.
And yet nothing seemed to satiate him now.
Darius cleared his throat. "Morning."
Cal nodded, keeping his gaze fixed on his plate. "Morning."
The scrape of forks followed, each sound a little too sharp for how quiet the room was.
Cal could feel Darius's eyes on him every so often. A prickle crawled up his spine each time, like the man was trying to peel open his thoughts. Assumptions pulsed through Cal's mind like a heartbeat.
He was asleep when we came home last night. He doesn't know.
Right?
Did he hear anything?
Yesterday's spiral of events replayed themselves in his thoughts. Him and Vincent listening in on the guards' conversation… their decision to investigate the tunnel… the fugitive, the blood, the light.
His chest tightened.
Darius set his fork down, the clink loud in the silent kitchen. "Cal."
Cal froze.
Darius's brows furrowed, but his tone held no anger. Just tired curiosity filled the words.
"What were you two doing locked in your room all day yesterday?"
The relief had slammed Cal so hard, he felt his body sag forward, almost like he'd collapse inward. Darius didn't know. The fact that they left the forge, tailed platoon members, decided to make their way to the tunnel...
Or that they saw what they did. The blood.
Cal noticed Darius' gaze and snapped out of his thinking. He shrugged.
"Just... didn't feel like going out."
"Mm." Darius accepted the answer, though his eyes lingered on Cal for a touch longer than normal.
Cal poked at his food, suddenly hyperaware of the quiet.
Then it sank in again — their argument. The words thrown between them. The accusations. The reprimands. The bitterness. The sting.
Cal could see it in the way his grandfather's jaw tightened between bites, in how Darius's eyes flicked toward him and away, as if searching for the right moment to say something he didn't know how to voice.
Just say it, Cal thought.
Just tell him you're sorry.
But his mouth couldn't open. And Darius' never did either. The apology had never made it past their throats.
The three sat there at the table, sharing a meal in one room, yet it felt like there was an enormous chasm that separated the three of them. Only the silence, the scrape of the utensils, and everything they didn't dare to say was what seemingly held them together.
------
Hours had passed since then. In that time, Cal buried himself in silent work, assisting Darius in the workshop, or helping Vincent out in buying some essentials for the meals of the next few days. This was a custom now, ever since Vincent had met Cal a week ago.
The house had now settled into that soft orange dusk-glow, with the sun slowly setting in the west. Cal decided to head back down to the workshop, with something finally clear in his mind.
An apology.
He had rehearsed it all day. Brief, simple, and nothing dramatic. Just something to ease the knot that had been tightening in his chest since yesterday.
Darius was hunched over, sleeves rolled past his elbows, the old muscles in his forearms straining as he worked a whetstone along a half-finished blade. Sparks flicked off like fireflies.
Cal hesitated in the doorway before stepping in.
"Back again?" Darius asked, his back still turned to Cal.
Cal worked his jaw. "Yeah… I needed to clear my head."
"Mhm... Thought so."
Another moment passed, with more sparks spraying out. Then a pause in his movements. Darius finally set the blade aside and looked at him.
"You wish to ask me something?" Darius asked, his voice firm but not unkind.
Cal exhaled slowly. "I... I came here to apologize."
A pause. Darius' gait softened ever so slightly, an eyebrow raised in a small arch. "That so?"
Cal nodded. "I'm sorry for walking out like I did. I... I shouldn't have done that."
Darius wiped his hands on a rag. The corners of his mouth twitched, almost a smile.
"Well... I'm sorry too."
A beat of silence.
"But you need to make sure you mellow down, boy."
Cal blinked. "...What?"
Darius walked past him, grabbing another unfinished piece from the shelf.
"You've been getting ideas lately. Big ones."
He turned his back to Cal, going back to the work he was focusing on before Cal came down to the workshop.
"About the world. About things that are too dangerous. Like I always told you, they will lead you astray. And I'm happy you've come to your senses."
The words felt like a whip to Cal, his posture tensing. Darius continued, his voice calm and casual as it had been.
"That kind of thinking? It's trouble you don't need. You're a smith's grandson. You've got a roof, a trade, and a quiet life. Stay close to what you know."
Cal felt his heartbeat increase in its movements, the rhythm amplifying into something a racing pace. His fingers curled inward.
Darius didn't notice. Nor did it seem like he'd care if he did. He exhaled deeply before continuing to his words.
"This world will spit you out. Devour you," He snorted. "And I will not let that happen. Your life is safer and better here. You belong here. Grandeur is not for you. Nor me."
A slow, hollow pressure formed behind Cal's ribs. Darius' words continued in their onslaught, their echoing in Cal's ears filling him with a sense of meaninglessness.
"You keep chasing nonsense and you'll end up with nothing. Some folks aren't meant to be anything more than what they already are." He placed the metal down and gave Cal a pointed look. "And there is nothing wrong in that. There is no shame in you being... ordinary."
The last word hit harder than the others. Cal felt his throat tighten, almost like it fully closed. For a moment, he was sure his face showed exactly what ran through his mind.
Disbelief. Hurt. A slight hint of... betrayal.
But Cal forced it still. He swallowed the words he had come to give. It tasted like stale bread.
"...Yeah," Cal muttered, barely audible. "I understand."
Darius nodded, satisfied, already turning back to his work. "Good." Nothing else. No explanations. No reasonings.
Just those words that made Cal realize the painful truth he desperately wanted to refuse for so long. He blamed it on the forge. Then Lamnor. He even blamed his parents. The same parents he knew nothing about. But it was clear as day.
He didn't feel "good". He felt — no, was — small. Insignificant.
Worthless.
The nod that came from him was numb and short, as he stepped backward out of the workshop, and let the door close behind him.
As Cal took the last few steps to his room, he felt the weight from everything crash down onto him. He sat down in bed and buried his face into his hands, the pang from his grandfather's words still making their mark. The breath he let out filled the room, and Cal wished that he never opened his mouth.
------
The stars of the night sky had now shone over Lamnor and the Hollow Anvil. Yet its beauty and the tiredness that came with the night did nothing to Cal's rambunctious reflections. The conversation replayed in loops — every word, every breath, every tiny shift in Darius's expression.
Cal woke up that morning to apologize, only to be shown the reality of it all. Darius always found the angle that cut him first.
"You're out of your depth, Cal! And you're dragging an innocent boy down with you!"
"Your life is safer and better here. You belong here. Grandeur is not for you."
Cal clenched his jaw. Here? This city that held nothing for him, with the sole exception of the past day? The same place where he heard those words like he was some poor soul with no mind to think?
He doesn't even trust me! He thinks I'm ruining Vincent like I'm a bad influence, and he won't tell me anything! It's like he expects me to fail and get hurt without even giving me a chance! Am I that weak to him? Was I just a burden? That just asking questions is going to get us killed?
He rubbed at his eyes, frustration burning behind them. He was tired. Tired of being misunderstood, tired of feeling like a weight, tired of trying to bridge a gap that never closed.
As he went into his room, he was met with the sight of Vincent sitting alone on the bed, sliding off his boots. The house had quieted enough that Cal could hear the chirps in the chill night outdoors.
Vincent looked up and caught Cal's gaze. "Hey. You look rough."
Cal scoffed with a humorless breath. "Is it that obvious?"
Vincent scooted over just enough to give Cal space to sit down beside him. Cal hesitated, wondering if it was worth it to have a conversation with someone else. He had enough of words for one day.
Vincent noticed the look etched upon Cal's visage, his eyebrows narrowing in concern. "Hey, are you okay?"
Cal sighed, his body slumping down in acceptance as he sat down on the bed. He took a deep breath in, before finally deciding to say what he wanted to say the previous night.
"I had a dream last night."
Vincent blinked. "Okay...?"
"Let me finish," Cal continued. "This wasn't any dream. I felt... I felt it. I could feel the chill on my face and my movements were too real. This was something odd. Something wrong." Cal stared at his hands. "And when I woke up, there were these—these strands of light coming out of my fingers. White. Like those lumenveil mushrooms."
Silence. Nothing was said and no reaction was made for a moment, like everything was frozen. Vincent's expression remained unreadable. Then slowly, he responded with a trace of skepticism in his voice.
"You're not serious, are you?"
"I wish I wasn't," Cal lifted his hand again, as if the light would return if he talked more about it. It didn't. "I feel like I'm losing it."
For a long moment, Vincent said nothing. His brows knitted, his mouth tightening — not in disbelief, but in thought. In memory.
"Cal," Vincent began. "Back when we were in that tunnel... that fugitive's blood... Remember the way it bubbled? That wasn't normal. Do you think-"
"No," Cal responded quickly, his pulse quickening. "I'm not whatever he was!"
Vincent flinched a little from the harsh tone in Cal's voice. "I'm not saying you are! You're a good person. That man was just... different."
"Then what're you trying to get at?" Cal asked.
Vincent shifted his feet onto the bed, sitting with his legs now folded together. "I know I've said it before, but I can't help but keep thinking about it. You're too good of a fighter to say you've just been trained by Mr. Virell! And now this?" His eyes were sharp, determined.
"Something about is... special. Something strong. And ever since we heard that message from the Evervoid Kingdom, I can't help but think... that you should try to participate in the Merlin Trials."
The words initially sounded like heresy as they reached Cal's ears, a breath of incredulity escaping him.
"Never," Cal said instinctively. "I'm not... Vincent, I'm not ready for that."
"So, you're saying that saving my life back in that alley was you not being ready?" Vincent leaned in, voice dropping. "You killed those scavengers and made one of them run away on the spot! You... You gave me another chance without even trying, and you're not ready?"
Cal looked away. His chest felt tight, as if something was pulling at him from the inside, whispering truths he didn't want to hear.
He wanted to say no. He wanted to stay in the shop, stay in the life he knew, stay where things were predictable, even if suffocating.
But beneath all that… something else stirred. A quiet want. A pull toward something greater, larger, terrifying.
A path.
He didn't say anything in response, sliding off the bed and into the bedding that laid on the floor. The woven sheets were cool against his palms, but even then, he wasn't sure if he'd sleep. But lying down was the only thing he could manage for now.
As he lowered himself, his gaze drifted to his right and in the corner of his eye, was his sword. He didn't know why he reached for it. Habit, maybe. Or instinct. Or something else entirely.
His fingers curled around the hilt. The brass felt natural in his hand and the feeling was the only constant he knew in the past week.
A minute passed in the quiet and for a moment, everything seemed as usual. Then something caught Cal's eyes.
He stared at the scabbard, watching as a soft glow bled through it.
What?
Cal froze. His breath hitched sharply. The light was faint — no brighter than a candle's flicker — but unmistakably the same hue. The same white, threadlike radiance that had leaked from his hands the night before.
A trembling pulse of… something… traveled through the blade, warm enough to be felt through the leather wrap.
Slowly, carefully, he slid the scabbard free.
Light spilled into the dim room. White, mist-like strands stemmed from the silver blade, drifting like they wanted to escape the steel. The sword looked less like forged metal and more like a vessel trying to hold back the light that came from a distant star.
On the bed, Vincent stirred.
"Cal, what're you-"
He stopped, the glow immediately catching his eye with an iron hold. "What in the — Cal!"
Cal didn't turn to Vincent, staring at the blade like it was something ancient and godlike. This was the same light he saw after his dream, and now it came before him once again.
"This... This was the light I was talking about!" Cal said, his voice rising in earnest. Vincent scrambled off the bed and dropped to his knees beside him, eyes wide, reflecting the blade's ghostly shimmer.
"You weren't lying," Vincent said, as if the notion of Cal's words being a lie was ever a possibility.
The light died slowly, sinking back into the steel like a breath being swallowed. For a moment neither of them moved. Vincent's hand hovered near the hilt but didn't touch it, as if afraid it might burn him.
"...Cal," he whispered, voice thin. "Do you know what this means?"
Cal didn't answer. His eyes remained on the blade, on the place where the radiance had been, as though staring hard enough might force it to return or explain itself.
Vincent wet his lips. He stepped back, mind racing. "We need to figure this out. But not here. Not with—"
Cal caught the hesitation anyway. "Definitely not granddad."
A silence settled between them, thick and heavy, broken only by the faint hum of nighttime wind. Cal's grip tightened around the hilt. His thoughts thrashed violently—frustration, humiliation, fear, and something else, something hot and bitter and pulsing under his ribs.
He thought of the dream.
Of the voice. Of radiance leaking between his fingers like he was made of something he wasn't supposed to be.
He thought of Darius' words. He thought of the irrelevance he felt. He thought of the tunnel. Of the blood fizzing.
Of the fugitive staring at him like he was something impossible. He thought of everything he didn't know. Everything he wasn't allowed to know. Everything he wasn't allowed to be.
It smothered him. Bit by bit. Year after year. Word after word. A quiet suffocation he had pretended wasn't killing him.
Cal finally let go of the sword — not gently, not violently, but with a strange finality. As if releasing more than steel.
He turned to Vincent with an expression the boy had never seen on him—flat, unreadable, almost calm. Dangerously calm.
"Vincent," he said softly.
Vincent looked up slowly. "Yeah?"
"Put on your boots," Cal replied. "I'll go get you a coat."
Vincent stared at him, baffled. "What? Why? You want to see this in private? Cal-"
Cal moved past him, grabbing his pack from beneath the bed and slinging it over his shoulder. When he turned back, the unreadable calm had sharpened into something almost resolute.
"Not that," he said quietly. "We're leaving. We're going to Gravenmoor Hold."
Vincent froze.
Cal's next words were the death sentence to everything Darius had been trying to chain him to. The refutation of everything he was told in the eighteen years of his life.
"And we're taking the runecarriages to Nareth."
A breath.
A heartbeat.
A choice made.
"I'm going to participate in the Merlin Trials."