The night air had turned sharp by the time Kael led us to a small stone shelter near the edge of the clearing. It wasn't much,just three standing walls and a roof formed from fallen slabs,but in this world, it was enough to keep the worst of the shadows away.
Kael arranged a small, controlled flame at the center using dried herbs instead of wood. The fire burned low and pale, as if even it feared being seen.
Xeno leaned against the stone, arms folded. The flickering light caught the edge of his blindfold, but still I could not see his eyes.
I sat opposite him, my thoughts still tangled in what I had seen in the circle.
"Try to sleep," Kael said. "Rest is a weapon. Most forget that."
"And the Xenophores?" I asked quietly. "Do they sleep too?"
Kael gave a soft, mirthless huff. "No. They wait."
He lowered himself onto a stone and began drawing shapes into the dust with the tip of a broken stick.
"There are many kinds," he said. "More than I know, and more than I wish to know. But they are not born randomly. Each one is shaped from human action. From repetition. From habit."
"What kind of actions?" I asked.
"Cruelty," he replied immediately. "Betrayal. Obsession. Greed. Joy taken too far into madness. Love twisted into possession. Violence repeated so often the world grows sick of it."
He looked at the markings he had drawn,rough symbols of claws, eyes, shattered circles.
"Each Xenophore carries part of the sin that made it. That is why some hunt. Some stalk. Some whisper. Some only watch. They are all reflections. And reflections always want to return to their source."
A strange chill settled in my stomach.
"Can they be… reasoned with?" I asked.
Kael didn't look up. "Would you reason with a memory?"
Silence answered for me.
I glanced toward Xeno again. "And what about him?" I asked. "Why do they focus on him?"
Xeno's jaw tightened slightly.
Kael's hand stilled.
"That is not knowledge you earn on the sixth chapter of your life," he said. "That truth is written deeper in the world."
"But," I began.
"You will learn," Xeno interrupted calmly. "Just not yet."
It was the most he'd said that night.
For a moment, the only sound was the quiet flame and the distant wind over stone.
Then Xeno spoke again.
"You stepped into the circle without hesitation today," he said, almost thoughtful. "Most would have run."
"I almost did," I admitted.
"But you didn't."
I shrugged slightly. "I'm tired of running."
His head turned slightly in my direction. "That tiredness… is where real strength begins."
The words settled over me in a strange, warm way.
"I don't know how to be strong," I said. My voice came out softer than I meant it to. "I've always just… reacted. Panic. Fear. Instinct."
"Instinct kept you alive," he replied. "Now we sharpen it."
Kael watched us quietly, a faint knowing look in his eyes.
"You two are more alike than you think," he said.
I almost scoffed. "We're nothing alike."
Xeno let out a faint breath that might have been a quiet laugh.
"You're both still here," Kael continued. "In a world that devours the careless. That is similarity enough."
The night stretched on, quiet and watchful. No Xenophore cries. No clicking. Only the silence of a world holding its breath.
At some point, Kael's breathing deepened,he had fallen into a light rest.
But I remained awake.
"So…" I murmured, unable to stop myself. "Under the blindfold… are you even human?"
He didn't answer right away.
"Yes," he said eventually. "I am."
Not was. Not used to be.
Am.
Something in me loosened at that word.
"That's all I wanted to know," I whispered, closing my eyes.
He did not move, but his presence felt closer somehow. Protective. Steady. Like a wall against the dark.
And in the distance, far beyond the cliffs, the world listened.
But it did not come closer.
For the first time in a long while…
I slept without fear.
That night, while everyone slept, I woke up to the faint sound of something moving outside. Not footsteps. Not an animal. Just… the soft dragging of space itself, like the world was being gently pulled in one direction.
I sat up, heart pounding, and noticed faint, glowing marks on the ground beyond the doorway, symbols that hadn't been there before. They shimmered like dying embers.
When I blinked, they were gone.
But the air still felt… watched.
And somewhere, far beyond the hills, something had noticed us too.