Kael did not wake so much as resurface.
Pain came first deep, grinding, and unfamiliar. Not the sharp agony of battle wounds, but something hollower, like a limb missing where strength once lived. His Sight flickered weakly, no longer roaring but whispering, and the hunger… the hunger was distant. Quiet.
That terrified him more than any scream.
He lay beneath a torn sky inside the Witch of Tallow's inner sanctum, ash circles burned into the stone floor around him. Candles guttered, their flames bending unnaturally as if afraid to touch him.
"You burned yourself," the Witch said from somewhere near his feet.
Kael tried to sit up and failed. His limbs felt heavy, sluggish, as if they no longer fully belonged to him. "I didn't consume," he rasped.
"No," she replied. "You spent."
The words settled heavily.
She explained slowly: Kael had done something unprecedented. Instead of feeding on souls to fuel control, he had sacrificed fragments of his own accumulated power burning strength, memories, potential to impose order without consumption.
"You chose humanity over ascension," the Witch said. "That choice leaves scars."
Kael stared at his hands. The pale lines beneath his skin were dimmer now, thinner.
For the first time since awakening the Sight, he was weaker than before.
And yet… he still felt whole.