Author here: it has come to my knowledge that I like using the letter k for my naming, so I decided to change. So I change the male main character name from kaelen to Max
Chapter 3: Max and the Great Distraction Debacle
Max was a terrible name for an immortal hunter of cosmic aberrations.
It was the name of a friendly dog. A butcher's apprentice. A guy who was good at fixing carts. It did not fit the brooding, shadow-poofing enigma who was currently criticizing my footwork.
"Your stance is still pathetic," he said on the third morning, voice flat as stale beer. We'd graduated from "hold one thread" to "gently persuade the starlight to form a simple shield." My current shield looked less like a radiant barrier and more like a lopsighted, silvery dinner plate hovering weakly in front of me.
"It's a disc!" I argued, sweat trickling down my temple. "That's shield-adjacent!"
"A shield implies defensive utility. That," he nodded at my wobbly construct, "implies you've had a small culinary accident with very cold mercury. Your back foot is doing nothing. It's just… there. Like a decorative turnip."
I scowled, shifting my weight. The 'decorative turnip' foot immediately betrayed me, sliding on a patch of damp moss. I yelped, my concentration shattered. The silvery dinner plate splattered into a hundred fading sparks, and I landed hard on my backside.
A soft thump, followed by the distinct, damp squelch of leather meeting mud.
Max didn't laugh. He never laughed. But he did let out a long, slow exhale that sounded like the very concept of disappointment. He walked over and looked down at me. From this angle, against the brightening sky, he just looked like a tall, annoyed silhouette.
"You're thinking about the power," he stated.
"Well, yes! That's the whole point!"
"No. You're thinking about it. You're analyzing it. You're having a mental committee meeting with it. You need to stop thinking and start feeling. It's part of your intent, not a separate tool you're trying to pick up." He extended a hand.
I stared at it. The hand that, by his own admission, was supposed to end me. It was a nice hand, I noted absurdly. Long fingers, a few faint scars across the knuckles. No rings. I took it. His grip was firm, cool, and he hauled me up with unsettling ease, as if I weighed nothing.
"Again," he said, letting go the moment I was upright. "And this time, don't try to make a shield. Just… decide the air in front of you is solid."
It was infuriatingly vague, Zen nonsense. But the 'decorative turnip' comment had stung my pride. I wiped the mud off my trousers, took a deep breath, and closed my eyes. Instead of commanding the starlight to form a shape, I just… imagined a wall. A clear, cool, unbreakable wall right there. I felt the need for it, the certainty of its existence.
I opened my eyes.
A perfect, curving pane of shimmering, translucent silver hung in the air. It wasn't thick, but it hummed with steady energy. I could see Max's blurred form through it. I yelped again, this time in triumph.
He studied it for a long moment. "Better," he conceded. "The top-right quadrant is thinner. Your spatial awareness is that of a concussed mole. But better."
It was the closest I'd get to a 'well done.' I'd take it.
The routine was brutal and bizarre. Pre-dawn meetings in the glasshouse. Max, a creature of few words and lethal precision. Me, a bundle of nerves and sarcasm, slowly learning to speak my power's language. We didn't talk about the outside world. We talked about focus, breathing, the "energy pathways" he claimed ran through my body (which sounded suspiciously like made-up nonsense).
But the outside world had a way of intruding.
The fallout from the gala was a quiet, tense thing. Officially, I'd performed a "rare, defensive light-weaving" to save my brother. Unofficially, the court was buzzing. My father watched me with a new, cautious curiosity. Theron was exuberantly proud, clapping me on the shoulder so hard I nearly face-planted into a soup tureen at dinner. Lyra just seemed confused, as if I'd suddenly started speaking a different language.
And Gavril. Gavril's polished smile had acquired a sharp, calculating edge. He'd "drop by" for chats, probing with elegantly worded questions about my "sudden proficiency."
"I've just been… practicing," I'd mumble, which was technically true, if you counted "practicing not getting murdered by my tutor" as a valid training method.
---
The real problem started on the morning of the eighth day. Max had me working on "multitasking"—holding a stable light-thread in one hand while using the other to levitate a pebble. My pebble kept shooting off like a tiny, erratic cannonball. His critique was, as ever, blistering.
"You're partitioning your mind like it's a pie chart," he droned. "Fifty percent to the thread, forty-nine percent to the rock, one percent to panicking about where the rock went. It's all one pie, Elara. One awful, messy pie."
I was about to retort with a truly devastating pie-related insult when a voice, bright and familiar, cut through the glasshouse.
"Elara? Are you in here?"
Theron.
My blood went from cold to frozen solid. The thread in my hand flared like a startled star, and the pebble I'd been levitating zinged past Max's ear and shattered a remaining pane of glass with a spectacular crash.
Max didn't flinch. His eyes snapped to mine, the message clear: Handle this.
"Just a moment!" I called, my voice an octave too high. I frantically waved my hands, dissipating the starlight. Max was already moving, a study in efficient disappearance. He didn't run for a shadow. He just took three silent steps backward into a thick patch of overgrown ferns and morning gloom between two broken walls. One second he was there, a solid, annoyed presence. The next, he simply… wasn't. He'd perfected the art of becoming part of the scenery.
Theron pushed through the creaking door, his sun-kissed hair gleaming. "There you are! I've been looking everywhere. Since when do you take morning walks in the mildew museum?" His cheerful gaze swept the room, landing on the freshly broken glass on the floor. "And since when are you so destructive?"
"I… tripped," I said, gesturing lamely at the mossy patch. "The, uh, decorative turnip foot. Again."
He laughed, not suspecting a thing. "Well, come on. Father wants us in the strategy room. The scouts have reports on the Umbra League movements near the border. He wants all of us there." He threw an arm around my shoulders, his warmth a stark contrast to the chill of my practice. "Maybe you can freeze a map for us! That was really something, Lara."
As he steered me out, I glanced back. The ferns rustled once, gently, though there was no wind.
---
The strategy room was all dark wood and grim faces. Maps were spread on the table, marked with troubling red ink. The Umbra League was getting bolder. My father spoke of supply raids, missing scouts.
I stood beside Theron, trying to look appropriately concerned and not like a person whose main concern was whether her immortal hunter tutor was still lurking in the ferns, judging her life choices.
"...and we still have no idea what their ultimate target is," Father finished, rubbing his temples. "Their attacks seem random. But they're not. They're looking for something."
A chill that had nothing to do with my power crept down my spine. A power source, the League assassin had yelled during the gala. My gaze drifted to the high, narrow window. Outside, the sun was climbing, burning away the morning mist.
That night, Max appeared in my chambers as I was brushing my hair. I jumped, nearly braining myself with the hairbrush.
"You could knock on the door like a normal person," I hissed.
"Where's the fun in that?" He leaned against my dresser. "Your brother has the situational awareness of a sunbeam."
"He's not looking for immortal hunters in the shrubbery! What did you hear today? About the League?"
His expression grew serious, the usual dry annoyance replaced by a focused intensity. "They're probing. Systematically. Your father's right. They're searching. The 'power source' they want?" He looked directly at me. In the dim light, his eyes were utterly black. "It's not a thing, Elara. It's a person."
The words landed like stones in my gut. "Me."
"Your unique magical signature is a beacon. The Void Order cloaks me. You? You're a bonfire in a world of candles to anyone who can sense that kind of energy. The League's methods are crude, but they'll find you if you stay here, flaring your power in abandoned greenhouses."
The fear was instant, cold, and familiar. "What do I do?"
"What we're doing. Get stronger. Get precise. Learn to hide it, not just cage it." He pushed off the dresser. "Starting tomorrow, we work on damping your field. Making you look… normal. Boring."
"I've spent my whole life trying to be boring."
"You were pretending," he said, heading for the shadowed corner near my bookshelf. "Now, you have to become it. It's harder."
"Max," I said, before he could vanish.
He paused.
"If they're looking for me… are you still going to report me as 'contained' in three months? Or will you just hand me over to them to clean up your problem?"
He turned his head just slightly, his profile sharp in the lamplight. For a long moment, he was silent. "The League are scavengers. They'd tear you apart trying to use what you are. I don't hand things over to scavengers." It wasn't exactly a 'no.' It wasn't a reassurance. It was just a statement of his own peculiar ethics. "Be ready tomorrow. Dawn. And wear sensible shoes."
He was gone.
I stood there, staring at the empty space where he'd been, the hairbrush still clutched in my hand. My would-be killer was now my only protector. The world outside was full of new enemies looking for me. And my only ally was a man named Max who hated my footwork and thought my magic looked like dirty cutlery.
Somehow, against all logic, I felt a little safer. And that, I realized, was probably the most dangerous feeling of all.