The forest was quieter than usual that morning—not silent, but still in a way that made the trees seem like they were listening. Birds chirped, but further off. Even the wind filtered through the leaves like it didn’t want to disturb the two children who walked beneath.

Kael and Selene tread a worn trail just past the outer tree line of the village. Their steps were light, but not aimless. They had been coming here often now—to train, to learn, and in some unspoken way, to understand each other. Luman padded behind them, always alert but calm, blending in like a flicker of silver shadow.

Selene glanced sideways at Kael, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Your AQ is always higher after these walks, isn’t it?”

Kael didn’t answer immediately. He stared ahead at the bend in the path where mana currents twisted in strange patterns, like invisible rivers in the air. “The forest isn’t just wood and beasts,” he said quietly. “It remembers.”

Selene blinked. “Remembers what?”

“Everything.”

She fell silent, but Kael could feel her mind working. That was something they had in common—curiosity that rarely rested.

They reached the glade Kael had chosen: a circular clearing ringed by stone and gnarled trees. It felt like the very heart of the forest. He always felt something here—like a rhythm, just beneath the earth.

Kael knelt, placing one palm flat on the moss-covered soil. He didn’t need chants or glyphs. His mana responded to thought, to feeling. A ripple moved through the air—gentle, but deliberate.

Selene stood at the edge, watching. “You’re trying again, aren’t you?”

Kael nodded once. “It’s already inside me. I just have to let it out.”

What Selene didn’t know—what Kael hadn’t told anyone—was that the shard from the beast they fought had changed him. Not visibly. But its mana signature had fused with his own. His core was different now, infused with that fragment of primal strength. He could feel it humming under his skin, like a second heartbeat.

He drew a breath and opened himself to the memory of that beast.

Mana coalesced.

Not in fire or flash, but in gravity. The air thickened. Threads of blue-white energy twisted together, converging in front of him.

The creature emerged slowly.

Not summoned. Not conjured.

Born.

From Kael’s mana and memory, the essence of the shard formed into something new. A shape unfurled: a small draconic beast, no larger than a pup, with charcoal-scaled skin that glistened like wet stone. Its wings were tight against its back, more ornamental than functional, and its limbs were lean and quiet in their motion. It blinked with intelligent silver eyes, steady and unblinking.

Selene stepped forward, lips parting. “That’s... not a spell.”

Kael stood slowly. “No. It’s something else. An echo.”

The creature padded forward and stopped beside him. Not trembling, not aggressive. Simply... aligned.

“You created it?” Selene asked, crouching near.

“I didn’t mean to. But I think I shaped it,” Kael replied. “It’s what came through when I stopped trying to control the shard. It’s not a beast I knew. It’s what it became inside me.”

“It feels...” She hesitated. “Solid. Real. But quiet. Like it doesn’t want to be seen.”

The creature tilted its head toward her.

They both looked at it—Kael with analytical focus, Selene with wonder. It didn’t glow, didn’t hiss, didn’t threaten. But the ground beneath it shimmered faintly with pressure.

“It needs a name,” Selene whispered.

Kael looked at her.

She smiled. “We should name it together.”

He nodded. “Something that echoes.”

Selene said, “Aeris.”

Kael repeated it. “Aeris.”

The beast dipped its head. A pulse of light shimmered across its spine. The magic settled. The edges of its body, once fluctuating with unstable mana, snapped into clarity.

A bond was sealed.

Later, they sat under a crooked tree, watching Aeris curl beside Luman. The two beasts didn’t interact—but they didn’t need to. One born of pure resonance, the other of magic’s oldest breath.

Kael was thinking about the energy that flowed through Aeris. How it obeyed him. How it felt like a second self.

Selene interrupted his thoughts. “Why do you think the beasts are coming closer?”

Kael looked up. “I don’t think it’s just instinct.”

He stood and walked to the edge of the glade. Something gnawed at him.

There—a shimmer in the air.

Not natural. Not of this world.

He reached out.

The air pushed back.

A rift.

Not wide. But pulsing, unstable.

“Kael, what is that?” Selene’s voice wavered.

“Mana shouldn't behave like this. It’s folding inward—collapsing.”

He backed away. Aeris moved to his feet, standing guard.

Selene came closer. “Do you think this is why beasts keep attacking?”

Kael nodded. “Or just the beginning.”

They stared in silence at the place where the world had started to break.