The night sky above the Emberpeak Sect was soft with drifting clouds, their undersides glowing faintly from the molten rivers that wound through the mountain's heart. From the high pavilion that crowned the Elder's Tower, Elder Varin watched those glowing streams curve like living veins through the darkness.
He often came here when the sect was asleep — not for meditation, but for silence.The kind that allowed one to hear what the day's noise buried.
Below, the younger disciples were still awake, some training, some whispering under the flicker of lanterns. Their energy signatures burned like tiny sparks across the mountain — bright, hopeful, impatient. Yet one flame drew his attention again and again. Small. Flickering. Wrong.
Kaelen.
Varin's brows knit faintly as he leaned on the railing. He had noticed the disturbance hours ago — a tremor in the sect's flow of Qi, subtle but rhythmic. It wasn't enough to raise alarm, not for anyone else. But Varin had trained under the old masters who once built this sect from stone and oath, and he knew the pulse of Emberpeak like his own heartbeat.
Something in that boy's cultivation was… veiled. Not broken — hidden.
He glanced toward the western quarter, where the boy's chamber lay. The spiritual flow around that section of the sect shimmered strangely, as if refracted through glass. It reminded him of flame reflected in water — present, yet unreachable.
A faint sigh escaped him."So they've marked him already," he murmured.
He had warned Solen during the last Council meeting. "The boy is quiet because he learns through silence," he'd said. "Not every hidden ember is a threat."
But Solen was the sort of man who trusted mirrors more than men.
Varin's fingers brushed the worn wood of the railing. The air smelled faintly of ash and pine. For a moment, he thought back to years long gone — to another youth who had burned too brightly, too fast. He remembered the look in that boy's eyes before the Council broke him, the way flame turned to smoke when bound too early.
He wouldn't let it happen again.
Turning from the edge, Varin descended the narrow stairway that coiled around the tower's spine. His steps were light but steady, robes whispering against the stone. The torches that lined the path dimmed as he passed, reacting to his Qi — soft, disciplined, restrained.
He paused before the lowest level, where the sect's surveillance glyphs hummed faintly against the wall. A faint crimson thread flickered among them — Solen's personal weave, tied to one particular disciple.
Varin knelt. With a quiet hum, he placed his palm against the glyph. The web of light shimmered, showing him a faint afterimage: a young man in meditation, his inner flame shifting in strange rhythm — layered with something dark beneath.
He didn't see corruption.He saw choice.
And for a brief second, Varin smiled. "You've learned to blur your light," he murmured. "Good. But you'll need more than that if Solen starts to pry."
He exhaled, and his spiritual energy flowed through the glyph — softening its hue, blurring the record just enough that the next watcher would find it unreliable. It was a small interference, harmless on the surface, but enough to buy Kaelen time.
As he straightened, a faint voice echoed down the corridor.
"Elder Varin."
He turned. A junior disciple stood at the entrance, hesitant. The boy bowed quickly. "Elder Solen has called for an early Council. He says it concerns… irregularities during cultivation monitoring."
Varin's eyes narrowed slightly. "Irregularities," he repeated, as though tasting the word.
The boy nodded. "He insists it's urgent."
Of course he does, Varin thought.
"Tell him I'll attend shortly," Varin said, voice calm. "And tell the others to wait before they decide what irregular means."
The disciple bowed again and hurried off.
When the footsteps faded, Varin looked once more toward the western wing. His gaze softened — something like weary fondness flickering beneath the steel.
"Kaelen," he whispered, "whatever it is you're touching… tread carefully. The Council doesn't forgive what it doesn't understand."
The wind picked up then, carrying the faint echo of chants from the distant training fields — younger voices chasing power, unaware of the blades above them. Varin pulled his cloak tighter and began walking toward the Council Hall, every step quiet but deliberate.
By the time he reached the great bronze doors, Elder Solen was already there — tall, austere, a line of cold light etched along his cheek from the hall's reflection pool.
"Varin," Solen greeted without warmth. "You've felt it too, haven't you? That distortion in the lower flames."
"I have," Varin said evenly. "And I advise we tread lightly. Some fires grow irregular before they find their form."
Solen's lips tightened. "And some hide corruption until it consumes everything."
Their eyes met — two old flames that had burned side by side for decades, now flickering in opposite winds.
Varin smiled faintly. "Then let us hope this one burns clean."
The bronze doors opened. The Council waited inside — silent, ringed in shadow and light.
And as Varin stepped through, he felt it again — that faint ripple from the west wing, the whisper of a flame aware it was being spoken of.
This time, though, it didn't shrink away.It flared — faint but defiant.