Dustgrave had always been small. That day, it felt even smaller.
By morning, the whole village knew.
"Cultivators," someone whispered, as if saying the word too loudly might bring disaster down faster.
"From a clan," another added, as if that made any real difference to Dustgrave.
They didn't know the name at first. Merchants had spoken in a hurry, eager to move on before trouble came. But words traveled like smoke in a small place: thin at first, then thick enough to stain everything they touched.
Kael woke before the sun, as he always did.
He sat on the edge of his narrow, uneven bed, feet resting on the packed earth floor, and listened to the quiet creak of the old house. The air was cool, full of the faint smell of dry wood, dust, and a stale blanket that had been washed too few times.
He stayed there for a few breaths, motionless.
They're closer today, he thought.
He couldn't explain how he knew. He didn't feel spiritual energy, not the way cultivators did. He had no qi flowing through his meridians, no tempered body attuned to the world.
But the hollow place at his center, the open dantian that others called broken, felt… tighter. As if the emptiness were pressing against its own edges, straining toward something far away.
…closer…
The whisper was clearer now, like someone speaking from the bottom of a deep well.
Kael rose and stepped outside.
The village felt wrong.
People moved faster than usual, voices overlapping, hands busy pulling worn clothes straighter, sweeping dust from doorways, trying to make crumbling walls and patched roofs look almost respectable.
It was like watching ants smooth the dirt around a crack in the ground, hoping the boot wouldn't land exactly there.
Tomer stood near the center of the narrow street, arms folded over his chest. His eyebrows drew together as he saw Kael approach.
"You're up early," the old man said.
"I always am," Kael replied. "You're usually at the storehouse by now."
"Grent said we're starting late today." Tomer's mouth twisted. "He wants everything to look 'presentable' before the clan arrives. As if they'll care whether the grain sacks are in neat lines when they can split them open by accident."
He tried to laugh at his own words, but it came out forced.
A woman rushed past them, dragging a boy by the arm. She stopped only long enough to push the child toward a water bucket.
"Wash your face! And your hands!" she hissed. "If they see dirt, they'll think we're savages."
The boy grimaced.
"I am dirty," he muttered. "Everyone is."
His mother slapped the back of his head lightly.
"Don't talk like that," she snapped. "If they decide to take you into their sect, you won't ever have to come back to this place."
She caught Kael's gaze then. Her expression hardened just enough to be noticeable.
She didn't say the words, but he heard them anyway.
They won't take you.
No one would.
He walked past without a reply.
Children clustered together under watchful eyes, their clothes the least torn, their hair brushed as straight as possible. The younger ones fidgeted, excited. The older ones sat very still, trying to look serious and promising, imitating the posture of heroic cultivators from stories they'd never seen in real life.
Kael didn't stand with them.
He made his way instead toward the edge of the village square, where a low broken wall marked the boundary between Dustgrave's heart and its scattered outskirts. From there, he could see the long road that cut through the valley, a pale line of packed dirt running between dry fields.
His eyes narrowed.
The dust cloud he'd seen the previous evening was no longer just a smudge on the horizon. It had grown; shapes moved within it now.
Wagons. Horses. People.
And a cluster of figures whose stride didn't match that of ordinary travelers. Even at a distance, the way they moved looked different—more controlled, more deliberate. As if the ground didn't quite have the same claim on their feet as it did on everyone else's.
Those must be them, Kael thought.
The emptiness inside him shivered.
…stronger… closer…
The whisper brushed the inside of his skull, faint but insistent.
He leaned his arms on the crumbling wall and watched.
Tomer came to stand beside him a few moments later, breathing a little harder than usual.
"You've chosen a good spot," the old man said. "Close enough to see everything, far enough not to be seen too easily."
Kael didn't comment.
Tomer squinted at the approaching caravan.
"You know," he said, "when I was a boy, a group from a sect passed near my village. They didn't stop, but I saw them walking on the hillside. I thought if I shouted loud enough, they might look at me. Might see something in me."
"Did they?" Kael asked.
Tomer shook his head.
"They didn't even glance this way. Just moved on, like we were rocks and weeds."
He snorted softly.
"Looking back, maybe that was kinder."
Kael considered that.
"Being ignored is only kind if you never wanted anything more," he said. "You did."
"And you?" Tomer asked. "Do you want something more?"
Kael watched the caravan grow closer, details sharpening with each moment.
"Yes," he said simply.
He didn't decorate the word with hope or explanation.
Tomer sighed.
"Then listen to me," the old man said. "When they get here, keep your head down. Don't talk back. Don't stare at them like you want to steal the light from their eyes. Powerful people don't like that. And whatever… lives inside your dantian—don't let it stir too much."
Kael's fingers curled over the rough stone of the wall.
As if I can tell it what to do, he thought.
What lived inside him wasn't something he'd chosen. It was a fact written into him before he understood what a dantian was.
"Don't worry," he said. "Someone like me won't attract their attention."
He meant it as reassurance.
Tomer didn't look reassured.
The caravan rolled into Dustgrave not long after noon.
By then, the villagers had done all they could: swept the main street, patched the most obvious cracks in walls with fresh mud, sorted the children into the front like a line of offerings.
It didn't change the truth.
Dustgrave was still small, still poor, still cracked at the edges.
The first wagon crossed into the village square in a cloud of dust and rattling wood. It was well-made, sturdier than anything the villagers owned, its wheels bound with metal bands. The horses that pulled it were lean but strong, their coats brushed clean, their harnesses polished.
Behind it came two more wagons, then a group of riders.
The riders were the ones who made the villagers fall silent.
They wore long dark coats layered over fitted garments, the fabric of finer quality than any in Dustgrave. Metal clasps gleamed at their collars and wrists, etched with symbols that meant nothing to the villagers and everything to those in the cultivation world.
At their chests, stitched in silver thread, was a symbol: a half-circle like a broken moon, cut through by a vertical line.
"Half-Moon Shadow Clan," someone whispered.
Kael stored the name away.
The riders' presence weighed on the air.
Even without cultivated senses, the villagers felt it instinctively—the way the light seemed to bend around them, the way their steps were too casual for men who could crush stone with a fist.
Kael felt something else.
His open dantian pulled tight, like a muscle flexing for the first time.
…closer… brighter… heavier…
It wasn't a voice this time, exactly. More like impressions: taste without tongue, color without eyes.
He watched the riders move.
They dismounted in the square, boots landing lightly on the dirt. One of them stepped forward, taking the lead.
He was young, not much older than twenty by the look of him, with black hair tied back in a short tail and eyes the pale color of clouded steel. His features were smooth, well-shaped, the kind that would have been called handsome in a place less worn than Dustgrave.
To Kael, he looked sharp.
Like a blade made to remind others what cutting felt like.
His aura—if that's what it was—pressed subtly outward. The air around him felt denser, as if every breath had to move through water instead of air.
"The young master," someone murmured.
The village headman stepped forward, bent almost double at the waist in a hurried bow.
"Esteemed guests," he said, voice trembling. "Dustgrave welcomes the Half-Moon Shadow Clan. We are honored that you have chosen to rest in our humble village."
Kael's lip twitched.
He doesn't even know if they chose us, he thought. Maybe this is just where the horses got tired.
The young cultivator regarded the bent man in front of him without much interest. When he spoke, his voice was smooth and unhurried.
"We require a place to stay for one night," he said. "Food for our people, space for our wagons, and fresh water. In return, the clan will ensure that no beasts or bandits trouble you while we are here."
Bandits didn't come near Dustgrave often. There was nothing to steal.
But the villagers straightened slightly at the word protect, as if the promise had weight.
"Of course, of course," the headman babbled. "We will give you the best we have. We—"
His words stuttered to a halt when the young cultivator's gaze slid past him.
The man's eyes had caught on something else.
On the children.
They stood in a crooked line to the left of the square, scrubbed as clean as possible, hands at their sides, shoulders too tense. Some tried to look solemn. Others couldn't stop glancing at each other.
The young cultivator's mouth curved faintly.
"How obedient," he said.
He stepped toward them.
The villagers parted without being asked.
Kael shifted his position slightly, resting one shoulder against the broken wall, watching.
A few of the children swallowed hard as the man approached. One almost flinched when the cultivator's shadow crossed over his feet.
The young man stopped in front of the line and let his gaze travel slowly along it.
"What's your name?" he asked one boy at random.
The boy almost choked on his own tongue.
"R—Ralen, sir," he managed.
"How old are you, Ralen?"
"E-Eleven."
The cultivator made a small, indifferent sound.
"Too young," he said. "Too soft."
His gaze moved on.
He didn't bother asking more names. Instead, he reached out, almost lazily, and placed his hand on one child's shoulder after another, barely touching.
To the villagers, it looked like a casual gesture.
To Kael, it was more deliberate.
He's checking their dantian, he thought. Feeling for talent. For a spark.
The children stiffened under each touch, some hopeful, some terrified.
The cultivator's expression didn't change.
"No," he murmured after a while. "No. No. No…"
It wasn't disgust. It wasn't even disappointment.
It was boredom.
He stopped in front of a girl with dark braids and wide eyes. He held her gaze for a heartbeat longer than the others, then lightly tapped two fingers against the center of her chest.
"She has a little potential," he said without looking back. "Train her properly and she might reach a decent level. On a good path, not a great one."
The girl's mother gasped softly, hand flying to her mouth. Tears sprang into her eyes.
The headman bowed even deeper.
"Th-thank you, young master," he stammered. "We are honored just to receive your guidance."
The young cultivator's attention was already drifting away.
He turned, eyes sweeping lazily over the rest of the square—over the crooked houses, the villagers, the carts, the well.
For a brief moment, his gaze slid over Kael.
It didn't stop.
It passed over him the way it passed over the wall, the dust, the sky.
Kael felt… nothing.
No spark of recognition. No sense of being seen.
To the cultivator's senses, his dantian probably registered the same way the old healer's voice had described it: a bottomless hole. A wrongness with no familiar shape to touch.
Or maybe it didn't register at all.
So this is what you ignore, Kael thought, watching the man.
He wasn't angry.
Anger implied expectation.
He had expected nothing different.
Still, the hollow in his core twisted, not with hurt, but with something closer to irritation.
…bright… too bright… wasted…
The impressions flickered in his mind like half-understood words.
The young cultivator clapped his hands once, dust rising from his palms.
"Set up camp," he told the others. "The sooner this place is in order, the sooner we can leave it."
Some of the other clan members moved to obey, climbing down from their horses, directing servants and wagon drivers with casual gestures. A few of them walked past the villagers without a glance. One, a woman with a scar across her jaw, frowned briefly at the cracked buildings, then looked up at the sky as if searching for something interesting there instead.
The villagers scattered to help, dragging water barrels closer, clearing spaces for the wagons. The air filled with the noise of shouted directions, the creak of wood, the clatter of metal.
Dustgrave had never felt so crowded.
Or so small.
Tomer stayed near Kael, eyes following the clan members' movements.
"That one in front," he murmured, nodding toward the young cultivator, "he's not just strong. He knows it. That's the dangerous kind."
Kael's gaze didn't leave the man.
"What's his name?" he asked.
Tomer shrugged.
"Who knows? Someone said 'young master' earlier, but not which one. You could try asking."
Kael didn't bother.
Names were useful, but he could attach one later.
For now, he only needed to remember the feeling of standing on dry, cracked ground while someone walked by as if the world had laid itself flat beneath his boots.
The day stretched on.
The clan spread through the village like a shadow, claiming spaces without asking, moving people out of their way with little more than a look.
Most of Dustgrave obeyed.
Those who hesitated learned quickly.
Near the well, a boy about ten years old—smaller even than Ralen—tripped while carrying a bucket for one of the clan members. Water sloshed over the edge, splashing onto the boots of a cultivator standing nearby.
The cultivator looked down at his wet footwear, then at the boy.
"What are you doing?" he asked, voice quiet.
The boy's face went pale.
"I—I'm sorry, sir," he stammered. "I didn't mean—"
The cultivator's hand moved faster than the villagers could see.
There was a crack, the sharp sound of flesh meeting flesh, amplified by spiritual strength. The boy flew sideways, landing hard on the packed dirt.
The bucket rolled away, water spilling out in a dark stain.
The square went silent.
The boy lay still for a moment, then coughed. A thin line of blood ran from the corner of his mouth.
He tried to push himself up on trembling arms.
The cultivator snorted.
"Get someone who doesn't shake like a leaf," he said. "If you're going to be useless, at least be useless quietly."
He didn't look down again.
No one moved at first.
Then the boy's mother broke from the crowd, rushing forward on unsteady legs. She knelt beside him, hands fluttering uselessly over his shoulders, his head, his chest.
"Rian," she whispered. "Rian, breathe, please—"
"I'm fine," the boy muttered, though his voice came out hoarse and thin. He forced himself to sit up, biting down a groan.
"You're in the way," the clan member said.
The mother bit her lip so hard it bled.
"I'm sorry," she said quickly. "He didn't mean—"
"I said you're in the way."
The words weren't loud, but they carried enough weight to make her flinch.
She dragged her son aside, away from the cultivator's path.
The clan member walked on.
No apology. No second glance.
The villagers looked anywhere but at the scene.
Kael watched all of it.
His eyes tracked the way the cultivator's hand had moved, the angle of impact, the distance the boy had traveled.
He wasn't shocked.
He had seen men hit children before—for crying too loudly, for dropping food, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
This was different only in two ways.
The strength behind the blow.
And the fact that the man didn't even consider it wrong.
To him, that was nothing, Kael thought. Just clearing a stone from the road.
His hollow dantian clenched again.
…stronger… brighter… noisy… wasteful…
The impressions coiled into something that almost felt like hunger.
Not for bread. Not for clean water.
For something else.
Kael lowered his gaze to his own hands.
They looked plain. A little rough. Dust beneath the nails. Veins faintly visible beneath thin skin.
Hands like these can't do what his did, he thought.
But something inside him disagreed.
…can… if fed…
The not-voice slid through him like a thin, cold thread.
Kael didn't flinch.
He let the sensation pass through him, examining it the way he examined everything else.
Carefully. Without panic.
If you're hungry, he thought toward the emptiness, then what feeds you?
There was no clear answer.
Just a vague impression: heat flowing downward, light being swallowed, strength going from one shape to another.
He watched the clan member's back as the man walked away, perfectly at ease, boots leaving prints in the dust.
He has what I don't, Kael thought. And he throws it around without thinking.
The thought wasn't bitter.
It was calculating.
"That boy's lucky," Tomer muttered beside him.
Kael glanced at him.
"Lucky?" he repeated.
Tomer's jaw tightened.
"He's breathing," the old man said. "A cultivator that arrogant could've hit harder. Could've broken more than his pride."
Kael considered that, then looked back at Rian and his mother.
The boy clung to her arm, shaking. His eyes were wide, but there was something new in them now.
Not just fear.
Something like a crack in whatever belief he had about the world's fairness.
Good, Kael thought absently. He'll stop imagining the sky is kind.
He didn't feel sorry for the boy.
He didn't feel pleased, either.
He simply watched.
They don't see us as people, he thought. We're furniture that moves, and sometimes breaks.
He looked at his own faint reflection in the nearby water barrel.
And to them, I'm not even furniture. I'm not there at all.
That should have made him feel small.
Instead, it made him feel something else.
Free.
Things that weren't noticed could move in ways others couldn't.
You walk in bright light, Kael thought as he watched the cultivators. You don't imagine the darkness would ever touch you.
His fingers brushed unconsciously over his abdomen again.
Where others had a container, he had a hole.
Where others held energy, he had absence.
If you pour water into a broken cup, it leaks, he thought. But if you pour it into a pit…
It didn't leak.
It vanished.
That idea stayed with him long after the villagers returned to their chores and the clan settled into the center of Dustgrave like a stone dropped in muddy water.
By evening, the sun had sunk low, painting the sky in streaks of dull orange and purple. Fires burned at several points in the square where the clan's people cooked their own food, not trusting the village entirely.
Kael's house was near the edge of the main road, close enough that he could hear the murmur of clan voices when he lay on his bed.
He didn't lie down yet.
He sat at the small table in the corner, a crust of bread untouched in front of him and a cup of thin soup growing cold at his elbow.
His mind felt too sharp to sleep.
Outside, footsteps passed from time to time—villagers rushing home, clan members moving from one group to another.
He closed his eyes.
He didn't try to meditate. He didn't know how.
He simply turned his attention inward.
Lower. Deeper.
To the place the healer had called a bottomless well.
For a few moments, there was nothing.
Just the familiar lack of resistance. The sense that if he kept falling inward, he would never touch the bottom.
Then, faintly, he felt it.
A pull.
Not outward, like qi circulating.
Inward.
Like everything wanted to slide down.
…hungry…
The whisper had shape now. A tone.
Not angry. Not desperate.
Inevitable.
Hungry for what? Kael asked it.
He had no idea if it could truly hear him, or if he was just talking to his own brokenness.
There was no clear answer.
But images brushed the edge of his mind.
A glow like the pressure of the young cultivator's presence.
The heat in the air when the man struck the boy.
The faint shimmer he'd noticed around some of the clan members' bodies when they moved quickly.
Spiritual energy, Kael realized. Cultivation. Their strength.
The emptiness wasn't just empty.
It wanted to pull.
To drag that brightness downward.
To swallow.
If I stand close enough… he thought slowly. If it's already reaching for them…
A slow, cold excitement crept into his chest.
Not the wild rush of joy.
Something quieter. Sharper.
Then maybe I don't have to climb the same way they did. Maybe I can take what they've already gathered.
The idea was wrong.
Against every rule Dustgrave told its children, every story about talent, hard work, and the slow, steady climb of cultivation.
He didn't care.
Rules were written by people who already had something to protect.
He had nothing.
He opened his eyes.
The sound of laughter drifted faintly through the thin walls. Clan members sharing a story, probably about a fight in some place Dustgrave would never see, or a treasure someone else had died for.
Kael stood up.
He moved to the door and rested his hand on the rough wood.
Just to see, he thought. Just to stand closer. To feel what the void does.
He didn't intend to act.
Not yet.
He wasn't stupid enough to believe he could touch a cultivator's power and walk away unnoticed on the first try.
But he needed to know.
Needed to understand what kind of hunger he carried.
The door creaked softly as he opened it.
Night air brushed against his face, cooler now, carrying with it the scent of smoke and unfamiliar spices.
He stepped outside.
The square glowed in the distance, lit not just by fire, but by something else—faint lines of energy, only barely visible in the dark, swirling around where the clan had set up.
Ordinary eyes would have missed it.
Kael wasn't sure if his eyes saw it, or if the sense came from his hollow center.
Either way, he walked toward it.