The road bent away from everything Kaien knew, but he followed it anyway.
Each step pressed deeper into unfamiliar land. The soil here was redder. The grass thinner. Trees clustered at odd angles, their trunks growing in slow spirals like they'd twisted themselves into knots over years of silent disagreement.
There were fewer sounds now. The birds didn't sing as much. The wind didn't hum. The silence wasn't empty—but it was different.
Kaien noticed.
He walked with his hands tucked into his sleeves, his coat hanging loose over his shoulders. The rhythm of his steps had changed. It wasn't the same light-footed pace he had used in town. That performance—the one who smiled too easily and asked too many questions—had been a mask. It wasn't him. It had never been him.
Kaien had always been Kaien.
The path sloped upward, subtle at first. Stones poked through the dirt. Branches dipped lower. And as the canopy began to thin, Kaien felt it again.
Not pressure.
Not aura.
Threads.
Thin, invisible. Not tugging, exactly—but nudging. Guiding. He paused and turned his head slightly to the right. Nothing there. But something told him to keep walking—not out of trust, but out of pattern. The world had been like this since Maren died. Or maybe before.
Sometimes the wind shifted around him before it reached his skin.
Sometimes the ground felt softer underfoot in places it shouldn't.
Sometimes the world listened.
Now, it was speaking.
He followed the pull.
Around midday, he came across a small wooden structure half-swallowed by the earth. It sat at the edge of a bend in the trail, nestled between two wide, bent pines. The roof sagged, and vines crept up one side. But it wasn't abandoned. Not completely.
A thin wisp of smoke drifted from a clay pipe propped up against a stone. A broom leaned beside the doorway.
Kaien approached slowly, eyes sharp beneath the hood of his coat.
An old woman sat just inside the structure. Her legs were crossed, with a bundle of dried herbs in her lap. She didn't look up as he came near. Her fingers moved slowly, pulling stems apart.
He stopped a few feet away, silent, measuring.
She was old, but not fragile. Her posture was too steady. Her movements—precise and measured. He cataloged the way her fingers handled the herbs: no wasted motion, no tremble. That meant experience. Likely someone who had lived alone for a long time.
The broom at the door wasn't just for cleaning—its bristles were trimmed. Not worn. Maintained. The pipe was placed to the side with the bowl, not discarded. Deliberate. Controlled. This was someone used to order.
Kaien didn't relax. If anything, the sense of control made him more cautious. He didn't believe in harmless strangers.
The woman glanced at him once, brief as a blink, and returned to her work.
"If you're looking for shelter, there's water in the bowl," she said. Her voice was rough, but not unkind.
Kaien's gaze flicked to the bowl, then back to her. He didn't move.
"I'm not very thirsty," he said.
"I don't think I said you were," the woman replied.
Kaien stayed where he was. The quiet between them stretched, but it wasn't awkward. It was the kind of silence that filled space like fog—soft, slow, watchful.
Finally, he asked, "Do many people pass this way?"
"Few do," she said. "Fewer return."
He hesitated before taking a moment to speak again. "Have you ever heard of someone… a man, sitting still. Surrounded by birds. Like they weren't afraid of him."
The woman's fingers paused, not startled, just briefly slowed.
She tilted her head. "Where did you see him? Or where did you hear of him?"
Kaien didn't answer.
She didn't press. Her eyes rested on him—not probing, not soft. Just present.
When it became clear he wouldn't elaborate, she asked instead, "Was there a name?"
"No."
"Hmm. A message?"
Kaien nodded. "'Find the one who sat atop the mountain.'"
A long silence followed. This time, the woman didn't return to her herbs. She stood, slow and careful, like someone used to moving in a world where things cracked if you rushed them.
She walked to a low shelf near the back wall and took down a rolled parchment. When she returned, she held it out to him.
Kaien stepped forward and took it with both hands.
A map. Hand-drawn. Faded ink and curling corners.
She pointed with one crooked finger to a symbol near the center. Three peaks drawn in charcoal, a mark above them that resembled a rising sun.
"Here," she said. "Old place. Not many go there. Not many come back."
Kaien studied it, then met her gaze. "Thank you."
"I don't think you'll find what you're looking for," she said, almost to herself. "Not quickly."
"I'm not in a hurry."
She gave him a look that couldn't quite be called a smile. "I don't believe the mountain is either."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He left before sunset.
The air grew cooler the higher he climbed, though the slope was still gentle. He followed the thread—no longer subtle. It moved with him now, a quiet current in the air.
At one point, he passed beneath a canopy of tall, thin trees. The light filtered down like glass. His footsteps made no sound. He stopped. Not because he was tired. But because something in the air shifted.
The wind didn't move.
But the trees leaned.
Kaien stood still. Eyes wide. Listening.
The thread pulled.
Not his body. Not his clothes.
Something deeper.
Something beneath.
He took one step forward—and the feeling passed, like walking through a veil.
He didn't know what it meant.
But he was beginning to understand how to hear it.
Later, the path narrowed into a small outcrop of stone that jutted from the mountainside. From there, Kaien could see the clouds below him, spread like sheets of pale smoke curling over the forest.
He crouched down and traced a finger along a groove in the stone. It didn't look like much—just a mark, maybe the result of time or weather. But Kaien had a feeling it had been carved.
Not by a tool. By repetition.
A hand, maybe. A footfall. Someone had stood here before. Again and again.
He pressed his palm to it. The stone was warm.
Not from the sun. From something else.
From memory.
That night, he camped at the edge of a ridge. Below, a valley stretched wide and empty, covered in slow-moving mist. Stars blinked above him, soft and quiet.
He didn't light a fire. Just sat with his knees pulled to his chest, watching the dark breathe.
He tried that stillness again—the one he'd brushed against in the past, when he focused just enough. Just long enough to feel something gather around him. A shape without shape. A hush without silence.
He wasn't ready yet.
But he would be.
He closed his eyes.
He thought of the man in the dream.
Still. Calm. Birds resting on his shoulders.
The world had moved around him.
And maybe, Kaien thought, that was the kind of strength worth chasing.
He laid back on the grass. The wind shifted.
Somewhere in the distance, the thread pulled again.
He turned his head toward it.
And smiled.