Kael sat atop the enclave wall, watching the horizon. The Black Bell's toll had faded into the distance, but its echo lingered in his bones. The dead were coming, always coming, and the Sight whispered relentlessly, urging him to feed.
For the first time, Kael tried to deny it.
He closed his eyes and drew in the cold wind, feeling the pull of the souls around him. Each flicker of light beneath the skin, each tremor in the shadows, was a temptation. Hunger clawed at his insides, a beast pacing within his chest, promising strength and clarity beyond mortal limits.
But Kael remembered the child, the living, the fragile souls he had vowed not to touch. He forced himself to breathe through the ache, to let the energy flow past him without consumption. It was agony. His head throbbed, his vision swam with pale lights, and he felt the fragments of his humanity tremble.
Hours passed. He walked among the enclave's people, seeing them in ways he could not before....their joys, fears, memories glowing faintly in the dim light. The hunger lashed out with every heartbeat, but Kael resisted.
He began to understand the cost: every soul taken strengthened him, yes, but it also hollowed him. Each refusal, each moment of restraint, was a reclaiming of self, a small victory over the void.
By nightfall, Kael had not eaten a single soul. His hands shook, his legs trembled, and he felt the sharp pang of loss, but he also felt clarity returning, a thread of who he had once been.
Varen found him at the wall's edge, silent and watchful. "You will not always have the choice," he said softly. "But if you survive today, you learn control."
Kael nodded, eyes fixed on the distant shadows of the wastes. Hunger still whispered, a patient predator. But for the first time, Kael could meet it without surrendering.
Tonight, he had learned to starve.