Kael inhaled slowly and rose from the bench, the cold night air filling his lungs. He turned to face the man, the black blindfold hiding his gaze, yet somehow still meeting the other's eyes.
"You work fast."
The man stood on the opposite side of the bench, posture relaxed, hands folded loosely around a small pocket watch. Its chain caught the moonlight as it swayed, ticking softly in the silence. He smiled, revealing a perfect row of white teeth.
"Heaven tossed me an opportunity," he said calmly, almost pleasantly. "I simply had the sense to catch it."
Kael focused, pushing against the strain behind his sewn eye and blindfold. Slowly, details bled into shape. The man was his height. His build. A black coat draped neatly over his frame, leather gloves fitted like a second skin. Long black hair fell past his shoulders, uncannily similar to Kael's own.
But his eyes.
They were not dark with shadow or poor light. They were black in a way that swallowed reflection, like staring into an empty well.
'Same age as me…'
The man tilted his head slightly, studying Kael in return. The smile did not fade. It sharpened, thinning into something deliberate.
Like a predator that had already decided where to bite.
The wind swept across the cliff, tugging at their coats and setting their long hair into motion. For a stretch of time, neither of them spoke. The lake below remained dark and endless, the moon's reflection trembling with every gust.
Kael folded his hands calmly in front of him, his posture steady despite the blindfold hiding his gaze.
"I'll need the recipe," he said at last, his voice even, "and two hundred and fifty mindstones upfront."
Silence returned, heavier than before.
The man did not answer immediately. He simply stood there, watching Kael, the faint smile still resting on his lips. Seconds stretched. Then a minute. Then another.
Kael tilted his head slightly toward the pocket watch in the man's hands.
"Six more minutes."
The man lifted the watch, its faint ticking audible in the quiet. He studied it for a moment before lowering it again.
"Time never hesitates," he murmured. "It just keeps moving."
His demeanor shifted as he looked back up, the playfulness draining from his expression and leaving behind something sharper, more focused.
"How much higher is your success rate," he asked, "for a rank one refinement?"
"Three percent," Kael replied without pause. "Above the standard."
Whether Kael liked it or not was irrelevant. The man in front of him had earned the truth. No one would part with mindstones of that value without knowing exactly what they were buying.
A smile crept back onto the man's face.
Space itself shuddered.
Ripples spread outward as he reached into nothing, his fingers curling as if grasping an unseen throat. At the same moment, the air beside him distorted in the same way, and his eyes followed suit. Subtle waves rolled across the black of his pupils, as though something deep within them had been stirred.
Kael watched without a word.
The man drew his hand back.
A severed head thudded onto the bench, its eyes glazed and mouth slack. Next came a hand, stripped clean of fingernails. Then a glass jar, organs suspended in cloudy fluid. He reached back into the warped space once more and pulled free a tongue. After that came another jar, packed tight with strips of serpent skin.
Finally, he leaned forward and bit down on his own tongue.
There was a soft, sickening sound.
He spat a small chunk of flesh onto the bench, where it landed among the rest.
Blood traced slowly down his chin, but his smile never faltered.
"Three percent?"
The man wiped his lips with his thumb. "Not bad."
Kael's gaze hardened as it swept over the ingredients laid bare between them.
'Soul pathway.'
The moment the severed head had appeared, Kael had known the recipe did not belong to anything even remotely righteous. Any refinement involving human remains was forbidden without exception.
But it was not the ingredients themselves that made Kael's eyes turn cold.
It was the ease with which the man had revealed them.
'Is he testing me?'
Kael remained silent.
Soul pathway motes were considered blasphemy given form. Merely speaking too openly about them invited attention. Using them invited execution. This was not rumor or tradition. It was law.
A law imposed upon the world by the Royal Noble families themselves.
Those who practiced the soul pathway were executed on sight. Those who defended them shared the same fate. No explanation mattered. No justification was heard. To defy this law was to defy the will of those who ruled the world.
So when the man calmly laid out the ingredients, there were only two possibilities.
Either he was so confident in his own power that Kael did not even register as a threat.
Or he was watching closely, waiting to see whether Kael would flinch.
Kael did neither.
His silence was answer enough.
Kael reached down and lifted the severed head from the bench, weighing it in his palm. It was heavier than it looked. Still warm.
He turned it slowly, inspecting it as if it were nothing more than an ingredient. His blindfold hid his gaze, but the air around him sharpened.
"What is your name?"
His voice was calm
The man's smile faltered for the briefest moment. He did not answer.
Silence stretched between them, carried by the wind rolling up from the lake below. Kael waited.
No answer came.
Kael's fingers tightened.
A dull crack echoed as the skull gave way beneath his grip. Bone collapsed inward with a wet crunch, and brain matter spilled onto the stone cliff, splattering like dropped paint.
Kael let the remains fall from his hand.
"No deal," he said softly.
The words carried more weight than a threat.
There was, Kael knew, a third reason the man might have revealed those ingredients so openly, that was neither based on provocation or confidence, but something else—
Desperation.
Kael would not proceed without a name. Someone who dealt in soul-pathway motes so casually was not a risk he could afford to leave unnamed. Power without accountability was how wars began.
The man stared at the ruined remains for a heartbeat. Then his grin widened, slow and delighted.
He reached into the warped space beside him once more.
Another severed head emerged, pristine, eyes still glassy with death. He placed it gently on the bench, almost reverently.
"It's Cain," he said.
Kael did not respond immediately.
But this time, he did not reject the offering.
Cain reached into the warped space beside him once more and withdrew a small pouch. The faint clink inside left no doubt as to its contents.
"Here."
Kael caught it midair and slipped it into his pocket without looking away.
"One week," Kael said calmly. "Meet me here again in one week."
Only then did Cain glance down at his pocket watch, its chain swaying softly as he tilted it toward the moonlight.
"You'll receive the rest when I receive the mote."
Kael gave a single nod.
Cain leaned back slightly, lifting his gaze to the sky. The moon hung low and pale.
"To think," Cain murmured, almost fondly, "this is the same moon the paragons once looked upon, Solian."
It sounded less like a remark and more like a shared secret.
He let his arms fall to his sides, the watch ticking softly in the silence between them. A warm, almost disarming smile crossed his face as he turned away.
Cain walked off into the night, his figure swallowed by darkness as if it had been waiting for him.
Kael remained by the bench, unmoving.
The lake was quiet again.
After Cain's footsteps faded into the night, Kael finally moved. He began gathering the ingredients, placing them carefully into the small bag he had brought with him.
'Dangerous.'
His hands slowed as the thought settled deeper.
It was subtle, easy to miss, but Kael had noticed it the moment Cain turned away. Cain had been acting. Just like him.
The conclusion was unavoidable when he considered the circumstances. Solving the layered cipher Kael had created was already difficult enough. Solving it in less than a day should have been impossible. Or at the very least, so unlikely it bordered on absurd.
To reach that point, Cain would have needed near-identical experiences. The same exposure to ancient languages. The same familiarity with obscure systems of thought. And even then, solving it that quickly spoke of something far more troubling.
Competence.
Not raw intelligence alone, but experience sharpened through repetition, danger, and survival.
Cain had not stumbled onto the message. He had recognized it.
Still, despite the act, Kael did not believe the name was false. He could tell. Cain had found him interesting. Interesting enough to respond honestly, rather than hide behind a mask. That alone carried weight.
Kael tied the bag shut and rose from the bench, his blindfolded gaze lingering on the path Cain had taken.
'Have I reached beyond the span of my own limits?'
If Cain had reached him this quickly, others would follow. It was only a matter of time. And while Kael needed mindstones, he was still only one man. There was no reality in which he could take commission after commission without consequence.
His soul was already fractured from the loss of the golden rod. Each failed refinement would carve deeper into that damage, thinning him further, weakening him in ways that could not be easily undone.
Kael lowered his gaze to the bag of ingredients in his hand.
He was gambling while already wounded. Even a rank two Luminaire now posed a genuine threat. In his current state, one misstep would not be survivable.
He inhaled slowly, steadying himself, then turned and disappeared into the darkness.