The night clung to Kael like wet cloth — heavy, suffocating, full of whispers.
He sat beside the creature in the dark, both of them wounded and still. The beast's breath rasped softly, rising and falling in eerie sync with his own.
He should have been terrified.
It had nearly killed him. Its claws had raked his back open, its fangs grazed his throat. But now… it simply lay there, eyes faintly glowing, limbs twitching as if caught in a fever dream.
The connection was real.
Not forged through spell or scroll, but something more instinctive. Older. Rooted in something beyond mere mana. When the creature hurt, Kael felt a twinge in his chest. When he touched it — just once, fingertips brushing its coarse fur — a vision surged through him.
A flash of shattered bone. A cave. The scent of iron and moss. Hunger. Fear. Loneliness.
It's like me, he realized.
Alone. Broken. Lost.
Kael staggered to his feet, every limb aching. The forest no longer felt neutral. It felt... alert. Watching.
"I have to move," he murmured. "I can't stay here."
The beast stirred at his voice.
Its eyes opened — a deeper green now, like forest jade under moonlight. It rose on shaky legs and took a step toward him, limping slightly from the earlier wound.
"Go," Kael said, more firmly this time. He motioned away. "Back into the woods. You don't owe me anything."
The beast didn't budge.
Instead, it took another step forward, then sat beside him.
Kael frowned.
"Are you—bound to me?"
A faint pulse of warmth fluttered in his chest. Not words. Not thought. Just a feeling.
Yes.
His breath caught.
Lifebinding. It was real. Not just a ruinous legend used to scare acolytes into obeying Circle doctrine.
And somehow, he'd touched it.
Hours passed. The beast followed at a short distance as Kael limped through gnarled trees and thick roots, blood soaking his cloak. His vision blurred more than once. He stumbled often.
But every time he slipped, the beast circled closer — offering its body as leverage, not growling or resisting, but watching.
Guarding.
Until finally, the trees parted.
And Kael saw it.
A ruin, half-buried in moss and vines. A crumbled tower with symbols etched deep into weathered stone — not Circle glyphs, but something older. Wilder.
He staggered forward, hope blooming sharp in his chest.
Shelter.
Inside, the air was thick with age. Faint green bioluminescence pulsed from moss on the walls. Broken stone altars lay strewn about, and along the far wall, Kael saw it:
A cracked sigil mirror — an oval surface rippling faintly, etched with the same rune that now glowed faintly on the creature's chest.
He reached toward it, dizzy. His fingers brushed the stone—
And the world spun.
Visions.
A woman with eyes of fire, drawing blood from her wrist onto a dead flower, whispering in a forgotten tongue. A child reaching out to bind a dying bird and sharing her own breath with it. Forests blooming from footsteps. Corpses rising with emerald fire in their sockets. Warriors stitched from root and flesh.
And at the center of it all—
A man with vines coiled around his arms like snakes, standing alone beneath a sky full of cracks.
His voice echoed through the mirror and Kael's mind.
To bind life is to give it shape. To wield it is to pay its price.You have paid. And been chosen.
Kael dropped to his knees, gasping. Blood trickled from his nose.
The beast growled low, circling him protectively.
Then, to Kael's shock, it spoke—not with voice, but through impression.
Ash.
He blinked.
"You… want me to call you Ash?"
The beast's head tilted, and that same faint flicker of warmth pulsed in Kael's chest.
A name. A bond. Shared breath.
Kael nodded slowly. "Then Ash it is."
He collapsed beside the altar, curling around his side.
The pain was still there, but it had meaning now. Purpose. Not just exile or disgrace.
He had something.
Not the Circle. Not power the world praised. But something real. Raw.
His own.
Ash lay beside him, curling close.
And in the quiet ruin beneath the Outlands, Kael Virelle fell into a restless, haunted sleep — the first with a companion by his side.