Kai returned to the orphanage at dawn, squinting against the pale cut of day, with dirt crusted into the seams of his fingernails and the smell of woodsmoke sewn into his shirt. He expected to find the place in the hush that always blanketed Shenya before the children woke, but he hadn't counted on Maya, who had been waiting for him.
She stood in the kitchen, hands planted on either side of the washbasin, and the look she gave him when he came in was so sharp it could have cut bread. Her nightrobe was wrinkled and inside out, and her hair—usually wound in a knot tight as her temper—hung in a fraying halo around her head.
Kai had rehearsed a dozen explanations on the walk home, but none survived the first second of Maya's silence.
"Where," she said, in the slow, careful voice she reserved for the truly idiotic, "have you been?"
Kai's mind shuffled through excuses like a gambler with a bad hand. "The woods," he said, which was technically true. "I needed to clear my head."
She glared at him. "Clear your head. In the frost?"
He shrugged, aiming for casual but overshooting into sullen. "Didn't want to wake anyone. I'm sorry."
Maya's eyes narrowed, but she didn't interrupt. Instead, she reached for the kettle and set it over the embers of last night's fire, her movements clipped and efficient. The way she poured water and measured grounds—each action deliberate, no wasted motion—reminded him of Lena's precision, but without any of the grace. Maya was all purpose, no artistry.
She ladled porridge into a bowl and slid it in front of him. "Eat," she said. "Then you'll tell me why you ran off."
He sat and obeyed, spooning the mush into his mouth. It tasted like paste and salt, but he forced it down, letting the warmth unclench his jaw. When the bowl was empty, Maya folded her arms and waited.
Kai stared at the knot of the table. He thought of the hollow under the alder, the lantern-glow in Lena's eyes, the impossible fire that had bloomed from his own hands. He wanted to tell Maya about it—needed to—but the secret was too raw, too new, and he feared she would stomp it out before it had a chance to live.
"I couldn't sleep," he said. "I kept seeing the test, the faces, hearing everyone talk about me. The only place that made sense was the woods. I guess I just… stayed."
Maya studied him for a long moment. Then she softened, the anger bleeding out of her face, leaving behind a tired relief. She reached across the table and squeezed his arm, her hand dry and solid and real.
"Don't do it again," she said, but her voice had gentled.
The guilt hit him harder than any lie. He blinked and looked away.
"I won't," he said, and tried not to sound like a liar.
They sat in silence. The sun broke through the kitchen window and spilled gold across the floorboards, catching in the lines of Maya's face and turning her hair to bronze. For a moment, the world shrank to just the two of them, and the old ache—of wanting to belong, of needing to be enough—settled back onto his shoulders.
Then the children started waking, their voices a rising clamor in the halls, and the spell broke.
Kai slipped away before breakfast was properly over. He left the bowl in the sink, rinsed his face, and ducked out the back door as soon as Maya's attention turned to the younger orphans. The cold nipped at his skin, but he barely felt it.
His body ached, every muscle sore from the run and from sleeping on cave stone, but he didn't care. He needed to see Lena again, to know that the fire and the magic and all of it hadn't been a fever dream. He cut through the backyards and skirted the edge of the market, keeping to the alleys until the town faded behind him.
In the woods, he let himself breathe. The air was clean here—sharp with pine and last night's frost, but free of judgment. He moved through the old trails without thinking, feet finding the softest ground, the best places to hide a trail. He wondered if Maya would bother searching for him, or if she would just assume he'd gone to lick his wounds again.
He felt bad for lying. But the memory of the magic—of the flame cupped in his palm, the pulse of energy that had answered Lena's call—was more intoxicating than any truth. It was a secret too big to share with anyone but Lena, and even then, it felt like a thing that might shatter if spoken too loudly.
He found the cave just as the sun crested the ridge, sending a slant of light into the mouth of the hollow. Lena was already there, sitting cross-legged by the ash circle, her hair a mess of white and silver that caught every stray beam. She looked up when he entered, and the smile she gave him was like nothing he'd ever known—equal parts challenge and welcome, as if she'd expected him all along.
"Rough night?" she said.
Kai shrugged. "Could've been worse."
She nodded toward the circle. "Ready to pick up where we left off?"
He grinned, feeling the last of the guilt slough away. "Always."
They sat, knees almost touching, and the world outside ceased to matter. In the circle, there were no tests, no pity, no disappointment—just the fire, and the strange, wild magic that was his alone.
Kai glanced back at the path, wondering if Maya would forgive him for leaving again, for needing this more than he needed her approval. He hoped she would. He hoped that, one day, he could make her understand.
But for now, there was Lena, and the promise of another lesson, and the thrill of a life that was finally, undeniably his own.
He stepped into the circle, and the morning vanished behind him.
Lena wasted no time. The instant Kai sat, she began to speak—not with the careful, coaxing words of last night, but with the brisk cadence of someone afraid the world might catch up at any moment.
"Today we start for real," she said. "Forget what the Knights told you. Even forget what I said yesterday. The truth is bigger, and much more dangerous."
She didn't ask if he was ready. She just began.
"The world has always had magic," Lena said, drawing another circle in the dust with a knuckle. "But what you've seen—what most people see—is just a trickle. Like rain running off a roof. That's the Knights' system. Safe. Predictable. They teach you to sip from the stream, never to touch the river, and especially not the sea."
She paused to check if he followed.
Kai nodded, recalling the old lessons: discipline, self-control, never, ever "overdraw." The memory felt small, almost childish now.
"What you are," Lena continued, "what I am—a little—we drink from the source, from our own wellsprings. You however, you drink from the real source. Not the surface channel, but the Well itself."
He tried to picture it. "Like a well under the ground?"
She grinned, teeth sharp in the gloom. "More like an ocean under everything. Vast. Ancient. Full of things the Knights can't even imagine."
He shivered, remembering the sensation from the night before—how it had felt like drowning and flying at once, every boundary in his body blurring.
Lena leaned forward, her face deadly serious. "The Sundering broke the world, Kai. It didn't just shatter cities or split families. It broke how magic works. Before that, anyone could learn—if they survived the practice. Now, it's rare, and almost always comes at a price."
He tried to imagine a world where magic was everywhere, wild and free. It felt impossible. He'd always been told that power came from bloodlines, from rules and years of discipline. From not messing up.
"But the Well is still there," Lena said. "It's just… dangerous. If you take too much, too fast, you break. Or worse."
"Worse?" Kai said, swallowing.
She shrugged. "Some say you lose yourself. That you drown and something else wears your body." Her eyes flicked away, just for a moment. "But if you can learn to swim—if you can control it—you could do things no Knight ever dreamed of."
He found himself wanting that, even as it terrified him.
She took his hands, guiding them palm-up in his lap. "Close your eyes," she instructed. "Breathe, but don't force it. I want you to listen to the blood in your ears, the bones of your body. That's where the Well starts. It is everywhere, inside you, in the soil, in the air."
He obeyed, feeling every thump of his heart, every cold sweat on his neck.
"Now," Lena said, voice low and soothing, "imagine the world as a great pond. You're on the surface. The Knights skim the top, careful not to make a ripple. But you—there's a crack under your feet, a place where the skin of the world is thin. If you listen, you can hear it calling."
He tried, holding onto the image with all his will. At first, there was only the cold and the echo of his own heart. Then, faintly, a vibration, like the rumble before a thunderstorm.
"That's it," Lena said. "Follow it down."
He sank into the feeling, letting it draw him deeper. The world around him faded, replaced by a sensation of falling through layers of memory and time. He saw flashes: his father's hand, the sting of training drills, the shame of the test—then beyond, to stranger, older places. A roaring blackness, full of stars. A pressure building in his chest, so vast he thought it might shatter him.
He gasped, eyes flying open. For a moment, the cave spun and everything looked too bright, the edges of the world rippling.
Lena steadied him. "Easy," she said, voice gentle now. "You felt it?"
He nodded, dizzy and a little sick.
Lena leaned closer, her expression serious. "That's the Well," she explained. "Most people tap into their innate wellspring to cast magic, drawing from it like a stream, easily depleted. But your wellspring is differen. Instead of just drawing from it, you allow the Well to flow directly into you. You're a born swimmer, able to navigate those depths while others can only paddle at the surface."
Kai let the words settle. It didn't feel like a compliment. It felt like being told you were the last of your kind, or the first.
Lena moved his hands again, this time shaping them around an invisible ball. "Now, we practice taking just a sip. Like dipping a finger in, not diving headlong."
He focused, reaching for the sensation. The pressure was there, just under the surface, but this time he tried not to panic. He imagined the energy as water, letting a single drop collect between his palms.
For a second, nothing happened. Then, the faintest prickle in his hands—a tingle that grew, humming like a live wire. His skin glowed faintly blue, the color so subtle he almost missed it.
Lena beamed. "You see? Just a drop. And you didn't even pass out."
He let the energy fade, hands trembling. He looked up at her, questions fighting to get out.
"Why me?" he managed. "Why is it so easy for me?"
Her smile turned sad. "It's not easy, Kai. It's just what you are. The world tried to patch over the cracks after the Sundering, but sometimes the old magic leaks through."
He thought about that, turning the idea over like a stone in his mouth. All his life, he'd wanted to fit in. To be normal, to be a Knight. Now, even the best parts of him were a kind of fracture.
But he also remembered the feeling—the power, the rightness—of the magic moving through him. For a moment, he wanted nothing else.
"Can you do it?" he asked. "Draw from the Well?"
Lena hesitated, then nodded. "A little. Not as much as you. My mother's side—" She stopped, reconsidered, then pressed on. "They say her people could swim in the Well for days. But the gift is weaker in me."
Kai watched her, seeing the flicker of longing in her eyes. Maybe she envied him, just a little.
She set his hands down, then began packing the ash circle tighter. "That's enough for today," she said. "You need to rest between lessons. Directly tapping the Well burns through you fast. If you push too hard, you'll start to lose the things that matter."
He wasn't sure if she meant memories, or people, or something else.
Lena stood, stretching her legs. Her limp was almost gone now, and she moved with a cautious, feline grace.
Kai tried to stand, but his knees buckled and he ended up half-laughing, half-gasping on the ground.
She offered him a hand. "You get used to it."
He took it, surprised at how solid her grip was, how warm. She helped him to the cave wall, where he slumped and let the dizziness pass.
"You're doing great," Lena said, sitting next to him. "Better than anyone I've seen."
He wanted to say thank you, or something clever, but all he could do was nod.
They sat together, listening to the drip of water from the cave ceiling and the faint, distant rustle of wind in the trees. The silence was comfortable, the way it sometimes was with people who understood each other better than words allowed.
Kai stared at his hands, half-expecting them to burst into flame or dissolve into smoke. But they were just hands—scarred, cold, too thin.
He remembered what Lena had said: dangerous, but also a gift.
He thought about the ocean beneath the world, the vastness of it, and for once he didn't feel afraid.
He felt—almost—at home.
The next morning, Lena made him do it again. And again. Each time, she changed the lesson: once, he had to hold the energy in a pebble until it glowed; once, she made him push the current into the dirt and watch as a tiny sprout broke through the cave floor, green and trembling in the light.
"Small things first," Lena said. "Your body's not yet ready for what you can do."
He wondered what she meant, but didn't ask. The lessons were getting easier, but also stranger. Sometimes, when he touched the Well, he felt not just power, but the memories of other people—flashes of pain or hope, images that weren't his own. He didn't tell Lena about those. Not yet.
Lena watched him closely. She never wrote anything down, but Kai could see her cataloguing every attempt, every failure. It made him feel like a test subject, but also like he mattered.
She let him rest when he got too shaky. They ate together in the cave—hard bread and dried fruit, and once, a packet of sweet paste that Lena claimed was "a delicacy in the Underworld." He laughed, but she just grinned and said, "You'll develop a taste."
He doubted it, but ate anyway.
Sometimes, late at night, he caught Lena reading a book by the firelight. The pages were old, the script a language he couldn't read, but the diagrams looked like versions of the symbols she drew for him. Circles inside circles, lines that twisted and looped. Once, he asked her about it.
She looked up, a little startled, then closed the book and set it aside.
"It's a history," she said. "Of people like us."
"Are there many?"
Lena smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "There still are. It's more difficult now though. The Knights and the Church make sure we don't last long, get us when we are young and extinguish us, or worse, force us into servitude under their bastardized version of events." She paused. "There are sanctuaries spread out in Runaara. Just difficult to find if you don't know what you're looking for."
He thought of Instructor Vantis, of all the times he'd praised discipline and order, the way he'd looked at Kai after the test. Maybe the man had known, even before Kai did.
"They won't find us here," Lena said. "Not if we're careful."
He wanted to believe her, but the memory of the shadow-things in the woods, the stories of "hollows" and outcasts, lingered. Still, the fire and the cave and Lena's presence were enough for now.
As the days passed, he grew stronger. The magic came easier, and with each lesson he felt the shape of himself changing—less hollow, more whole. Sometimes, he caught Lena watching him with a kind of pride, and that made the struggle worth it.
He dreamed of the Well, of the ocean beneath the world. Sometimes, he swam in it. Sometimes, he drowned. But always, he woke with the certainty that this was what he was meant for.
One night, after a particularly hard lesson, Lena touched his shoulder and said, "If you ever want to stop, I won't blame you."
Kai shook his head, thinking of Maya and the orphanage and the Cathedral, of all the places he'd never fit. "I don't want to stop," he said.
She smiled, this time soft and real.
"Good," Lena said. "The world needs more swimmers."
They banked the fire, and in the dark, Kai listened to the current of magic beneath his skin, steady and true.
He wasn't afraid anymore.