Across the corridor and in another room, Seris sat in perfect stillness.
Her wrists were chained to iron rings set into the wall. Unlike Kael's restraints, hers were metal. Quite thick, inscribed, and humming faintly. They glowed with a sinister light that made her feel diminished and weaker with each passing moment.
Inquisitor Shackles, she acknowledged.
The thought of an escape attempt came to her again. She needed to find Kael and get him far away from curious eyes, and to the White Flame bases as soon as possible. But it seemed the obstacles were gradually growing in scale.
Heck, she had already tested it once. The result had been… educational. A thin cut marked her lip where the backlash had thrown her sideways. She hadn't made a sound when it happened.
Footsteps approached.
She did not look up. The door opened, and Voss entered.
The man had introduced himself in his first encounter with her. Courtesy, she surmised. He seemed to know what she was, and expected the same courtesy in return. She didn't give it.
He regarded her for several seconds without speaking. Unlike with Kael, his expression held no trace of warmth at all.
"We meet again," he said.
Seris said nothing.
He stepped inside and shut the door.
"You," he said, "are considerably more dangerous than your companion."
Silence.
"I admire that," he added lightly.
Her gaze lifted.
If eyes could cut stone, the walls would have bled. Voss chuckled softly, but only with his mouth.
"Yes. Definitely the dangerous one."
He began to circle her slowly, keeping just outside the edge of a line drawn around Seris, which indicated the reach of the shackled prisoner.
"You carry yourself like someone trained from childhood. Your reflexes are disciplined. Your breathing pattern is regulated. Your muscles remain relaxed even in restraint."
He stopped in front of her.
"You are not a wanderer," he said. "You are not a mercenary. You are not Dominion."
A pause.
"That leaves only one plausible origin."
Her stare never wavered.
Voss leaned slightly closer.
"You belong to the Order of White Flame."
Silence.
His eyes gleamed.
"And you are very good at not confirming it."
He straightened.
"I spoke to the boy just now," he said casually. A flicker; quite tiny, almost invisible, passed through her gaze.
Voss saw it.
"Oh yes," he murmured. "You care about him."
No response. He tilted his head.
"That is interesting. The Order is not known for encouraging attachments. Especially to males."
Still nothing.
Voss smiled.
"That means one of two things," he continued. "Either you are unusually sentimental… or he is unusually important."
Seris's chains gave the faintest sound as her fingers tightened.
Voss's smile widened a fraction.
"There it is."
He stepped back, satisfied.
"I think," he said softly, "that I have stumbled onto something far more valuable than I expected."
Seris spoke at last.
Her voice was quiet.
"You don't know what you've involved yourself in."
Voss's brows lifted slightly.
"Oh?"
"If you're wise," she said, "you'll release us now."
He chuckled.
"People always say that."
Her gaze hardened.
"This isn't a threat."
The room grew very still.
For a long moment, Voss simply looked at her.
Then...
He laughed.
Not mockingly. In delight. Gleefully, like a child that just received a yearned-for toy.
"Oh," he said. "I like you."
He clasped his hands behind his back.
"Unfortunately," he continued, "I do not make decisions based on warnings from captives. I make them based on evidence."
He leaned slightly closer.
"And the evidence suggests you and your companion are standing at the center of something… enormous."
His eyes gleamed with curiosity sharp as glass.
"So I will ask you what I asked him."
He looked harder into her eyes as he shaped his question.
"How did you do it?"
Seris stared back without giving anything away, and asked dumbly, "Do what?"
Voss smiled, and nodded. "Acting oblivious. Alright. How did you manage to deal with a Cinder that had been impossible to get rid of for days?"
She stared at him, then looked down and closed her eyes.
Voss smiled again.
"Yes," he whispered.
"That confirms it."
He turned toward the door.
"Rest well," he said. "Both of you. Tomorrow, we begin properly." The door closed behind him with a soft, final click.
Seris sat alone in the dim chamber, the sound of the chains humming faintly around her wrists her only accompaniment.
Time passed strangely in Voss's holding chambers. There were no windows, no shadows that shifted with the sun, no distant noises to mark the passing of hours. Only the soft hum of containment mechanisms and the occasional footstep in the corridor beyond.
Kael learned quickly that captivity had its own rhythm. He learned to breathe, listen, and wait.
He sat hunched over in his chair, wrists still bound to the armrests, head lowered as if in exhaustion. Anyone looking through the observation slit would see a tired young man.
He wasn't tired, though. He was conserving strength.
Inside, he was mapping.
The floor had a slight slope toward the far corner. The air vent above the door exhaled every seventeen breaths. The binding metal tightened if he flexed too sharply but loosened if he shifted gradually. The lattice light overhead flickered once every few minutes; not visibly, but enough for the eyes to notice if they paid attention.
As he sat and ruminated over the current state of things, and his strange dream, something happened. A flash came without warning.
One moment he was thinking about the man called Solus.
The next-
-he was standing in a canyon of black stone.
Wind roared overhead. Not ordinary wind. It moved in spirals, coiling down the cliffsides like invisible serpents. The air tasted sharp, thin, and alive with pressure.
His hands were unbound.
His body was older.
Stronger.
Scarred.
Across from him stood a tall, barefooted man cloaked in layered cloth that streamed behind him in spite of the calm canyon air. His hair was dark and tied at the nape, his face calm, eyes carrying the quiet weight of someone who had seen centuries pass and remained unimpressed.
Kael knew him. Not from memory, but recognition.
Solus.
The name did not arrive as sound. It arrived as certainty. The Catalyst from his previous dream. The man who wielded the great claymore and smote his foes with sword and fire.
Solus tilted his head slightly, studying him. "You're late," the man said.
Kael frowned. "Late for what?"
"For learning how not to die."
The wind overhead tightened, spiraling faster.
Solus stepped back.
"Come."
And vanished.
Kael stood baffled, but his feet moved before his thoughts could.
He ran.
Suddenly, the door to Kael's cell opened and reality snapped back into place.
Voss entered carrying a narrow metal chair. No bucket this time. He set it down deliberately in front of Kael and sat, folding one leg over the other with scholar's composure.
"You drifted just now," Voss said mildly.
Kael lifted his head slowly.
"I blinked," he replied.
"Mm," Voss murmured. "No. Your breathing pattern changed. Your pupils moved beneath your eyelids. Your muscles relaxed rather than tensed. That is not blinking. That is… inward travel."
Kael said nothing.
Voss smiled faintly.
"You do that often?"
Silence.
"Interesting."
He leaned back slightly.
"I spoke with your companion."
No reaction.
Voss watched closely.
"She is quite composed," he continued. "Remarkably disciplined. She claims you're merely a traveler she encountered by coincidence." Of course, that was a lie. Seris hadn't given Voss anything.
Despite his probing, neither did Kael. Still nothing.
"But she also insisted," Voss added lightly, "that you possess no unusual abilities. Like she was trying to hide something."
Kael kept his breathing even.
Inside, his thoughts raced.
Panic. Did she emphasize too much? Would she? No, she was smart, and she was dedicated to her cause. Kael decided to believe Seris wouldn't betray her convictions. So, it must be a probe. Voss was testing. Planting statements. Watching for slip-ups.
The man clasped his hands.
"I am curious," he said. "If she believes you ordinary… why did she react so strongly when I suggested transferring you to Dominion custody?"
There it was.
Another false statement.
Seris would never react strongly to a mere suggestion. Not outwardly.
Kael tilted his head faintly.
"You're asking me to explain her," he said. "You should ask her."
Voss's eyes gleamed.
"Ah. Deflection. Very good."
He leaned forward slightly.
"You didn't deny the custody transfer."
Kael met his gaze.
"You didn't say it would happen."
A pause.
Then Voss laughed softly.
"Yes," he said. "You both are quite interesting."
He rose, lifting the chair with him.
"We'll continue later."
He paused at the door.
"Oh, and for the record?"
Kael waited.
"I haven't contacted the Dominion."
A beat.
"Yet."
The door closed.
Kael exhaled slowly, and closed his eyes again.
The canyon wind screamed.
Kael ran up the cliff, boots striking stone that felt both real and unreal beneath his feet. Ahead, Solus moved like a ghost through air currents that bent around him instead of resisting.
"Too slow," Solus called without turning.
"I'm running!"
"You're pushing against the wind."
Kael clenched his jaw and pushed harder.
The gust slammed into him sideways and sent him stumbling.
He caught himself before falling.
Solus stopped fifty paces ahead.
"No," the man said. "Again."
"I am trying!"
"And failing."
Solus turned.
"The Discipline of Motion is not about blind momentum. It is agreement."
Kael frowned.
"What?"
"You have to learn for what comes ahead. I am here to teach you what you need to. Motion is about alignment, not brute force propulsion."
"Alignment with what?" Kael was frustrated.
Ahead of him, Solus spread out his hands, looked up to the sky, and spoke gently.
"The world."
Before Kael could ask what that meant-
Solus stepped sideways.
Just a step.
And he vanished.
A hand touched Kael's shoulder from behind.
Still baffled out of his mind, Kael spun.
Solus stood there, expression unchanged.
"You fight movement," the older Catalyst said. "You treat space like an obstacle. It isn't. It's a partner. Until you understand that, you will always be late."
The wind tightened.
Stone cracked somewhere high above.
"Again," Solus said.
Kael got up, grit his teeth, and took his next step, wondering what in the world brought this upon him.