The compound's gates yawned open like the jaws of something half asleep and always hungry.
Kael passed beneath them without speaking, shadow-caked boots leaving silent prints across the stone. The others walked ahead, clustered in twos, whispering low. Not to him. Never to him. He didn't need to hear the words to know what they meant.
He didn't attack it.
It bowed to him.
He spoke like it had known him before.
Fel Corren said nothing during the entire return. Not even when Mirell's panic had frayed into something cruel, or when Tovrin asked—more loudly than necessary—why the Gloamkin had fled instead of fought.
But now, as the others peeled off toward their quarters, Fel paused and turned back.
"Kael of Hollow Quarter. Come with me."
Kael followed without a word.
They passed the upper walkways, wound through a narrow corridor flanked by crystal-fed scrying tubes—half dark, half pulsing like dying stars. He'd been here once before, months ago, for aptitude readings. Back when he still believed in the logic of their tests.
Now, he only believed in the hush of deep corridors and the pull of something older than instruction.
Fel stopped before a sealed chamber door. No crest. No label. Just a single etched line across its iron face.
"Enter," Fel said.
Kael stepped through.
Inside, three Whisperers stood waiting.
Not instructors.
Not soldiers.
These were different.
Their robes were identical—storm-grey, faces masked. No insignia. No names.
One of them raised a hand. "Remove your cloak."
Kael obeyed.
"Draw your veil."
He hesitated.
The last time he'd called on Tenebris in a sealed room, something had cracked. A mirror, a line in his mind, or both.
"Is this an assessment?" he asked quietly.
"It is a clarity exercise," one answered. "We want to measure your control."
Kael's throat tightened.
They were afraid.
They weren't testing him.
They were weighing him.
"Begin."
The chamber darkened.
A veil lattice activated—thin silver threads along the floor, marking a perfect circle around Kael. Suppression field, he realized. Not enough to cage him, but enough to strain him.
He exhaled.
Closed his eyes.
Tenebris. Come.
The veil rippled.
Not violently, not this time—but as a response. As if the shadow coiled within him had learned the difference between fear and invitation. It flowed up his arms, through his ribs, along his spine.
One of the Whisperers stepped forward and spoke to the air.
A figure shimmered into being beside him.
A projection.
Kael blinked—because it looked like Bran.
Slightly distorted, but clear enough. Taller. Stronger. Same eyes.
A cruel trick.
"He will attack," the Whisperer said. "You are not to strike him. Defend, but do not injure. Show us the limit of your leash."
The Bran-shade moved fast.
Kael barely brought the shadow to his forearms before the strike came. A high arc with a veilblade—crackling with faux-hate, illusioned fury, but real enough to hurt.
Kael blocked.
The next two came faster.
He countered. Evaded. Not once did he strike back.
The air thickened.
Sweat slicked his brow.
Tenebris wanted to lash out. It did not understand games. It did not comprehend tests.
It knew only threat.
Kael held the shadows tight against his ribs like a breath too long exhaled. His boots scraped across the latticework. Another strike—lower now, cutting—he twisted, let the blow slide across a dark-formed plate on his arm.
Still he did not hit.
"Escalate the illusion," the center Whisperer ordered.
The Bran-projection flared.
It spoke.
"You've always been weak," it said in Bran's voice. "That's why they watch you. That's why she left."
Kael froze.
The Bran-shade smiled with Bran's mouth. "Eline knew. She saw it in you first. She knew you'd lose control."
The next strike nearly broke his stance.
Veil-thread burned down his arm.
Tenebris surged—unbidden.
Not wildly. Not with rage.
But with the cold logic of a thing done being caged.
Kael whispered, "Enough."
He raised one hand.
The shadows pulsed outward—not as an attack, but as a shroud. They devoured the Bran-image, folded the illusion into black silk, and dissolved it.
Silence.
Three Whisperers. One boy.
No movement.
One said quietly, "How did you dispel that? That wasn't a projection. That was constructed."
Kael's voice came low. "It recognized the lie."
That answer didn't satisfy.
But they didn't press.
"Leave the circle," one finally said.
He did.
And as he passed them, none made eye contact.
But they watched.
Kael walked the outer halls alone.
He passed a group of junior initiates who'd once huddled near him during mess, drawn to his quiet strength. Now they parted without a word. Not out of respect—but because the air around him had changed.
He wasn't one of them anymore.
He was something adjacent. Parallel.
Eline was nowhere to be found.
Not in the scrying domes. Not in the library annex. Not even in the auxiliary gardens where she sometimes wandered after dusk.
He asked no one.
Because he no longer expected answers.
That night, Kael returned to the eastern rooftop.
The mist below was thicker than usual, blotting out the trees, making the citadel feel like an island above an ocean of ash. The stars overhead blinked through thin cloud.
He sat.
He breathed.
And when he closed his eyes, he heard a sound he hadn't heard in years.
A woman's voice—soft, accented.
Not Eline.
Older.
His mother.
From a memory half-formed.
"You will be different, my son. Because the world is cruel. But you… you are not cruel."
He opened his eyes.
Tenebris stirred gently inside his ribs.
No threat.
No roar.
Just… presence.
And Kael knew this was only the beginning.