The sun had long disappeared beyond the horizon, and the continent now lay cloaked in shadow. Above, the sea birds had grown fewer, their distant cries fading into the night as they finally gave in to rest. A few still lingered, gliding in slow, lazy circles beneath the open sky.
And what a sky it was.
A full moon hung overhead, vast and luminous, casting its pale light across the land like a silver plate suspended in the heavens. Its glow was soft, but clear, washing over the coastline, the trees, the stone, everything.
Kael sat perched on a stone wall, the coarse surface cool beneath him. He leaned back slightly, elbows resting behind him, each exhale sending faint clouds of mist into the moonlit night. The late autumn chill clung to the air, not harsh enough to bite, but just cold enough to remind him that winter wasn't far behind.
He raised his hand, eyes settling on the small, cat-like figure curled comfortably in his palm, resting without a care in the world. Kael sighed and gently brushed its tiny head with his thumb before dismissing the Titanwood Stalker mote from its true form.
'Truly a marvelous design.'
He leaned his head back, his gaze drifting to the moon hanging high above, pale and distant.
Ever since reaching rank two and realizing just how extraordinary the Obsidian Shard mote truly was, he'd spent every spare moment studying the motes in his arsenal. You'd think that months of dedicated focus would have yielded some kind of breakthrough, but it hadn't. Not really. The complexity of a mote didn't just border on absurd, it was absurd.
Kael reached for his knife and began absently turning it in his hand, the motion as natural as breathing while his thoughts wandered.
When he refined the Stone Coffin mote, it had all felt so clear. He remembered sensing every law of the ingredients as they merged into the mote, how they intertwined and gave birth to something entirely new. It had just… made sense. Like a puzzle falling into place, each part revealing a larger truth.
So when he tried to use the Obsidian Shard mote on a mote's true form, hoping to unlock the same clarity, he was left dumbfounded. He saw everything, yet understood nothing. It was like staring at an impossibly complex equation written in a language he had never learned. Familiar, but utterly indecipherable.
But the studying hadn't left him entirely without results.
For instance, when examining the Stone Coffin mote through the lens of the Obsidian Shard mote, something had begun to shift. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Kael started to unravel its structure. The more time he spent with it, the more he began tofeel its construction, its building blocks. It wasn't just intellectual knowledge, not the kind that came from books or hearsay. It was something else. A different kind of knowing. Deeper. Intuitive.
Even though he had already known the ingredients, at least in theory, this felt entirely different. He could sense them within the mote. The shape of the Wolf Tiger's sabre, the thrum of the human heart used in its forging. Not as individual pieces, but as living echoes inside the mote's essence. He didn't just know they were there, he felt them.
Kael stopped turning the knife in his hand. Now he simply held it, firm and still, as his gaze lingered on the moon above.
But why the Stone Coffin first?
He couldn't say for sure, but he had a few theories. Most obviously, it was the only rank one mote left in his collection, now that both of his soulbound motes had ascended alongside him. That alone made it the simplest to study. But more than that, he suspected it was because he had refined it himself.
And while that act alone didn't guarantee deeper understanding, it felt significant.
It was like walking through a forest without a map. Most people wandered aimlessly, hoping to find the right path by accident. But when you had refined the mote yourself, it was like holding a compass, not enough to guide you precisely, but just enough to give you direction. You still wandered, still got lost, but each step felt less like guessing and more like reaching.
But it wasn't the fact that he understood the Stone Coffin mote that truly excited him. No, it was what that understanding meant, what it implied.
If one mote could be unraveled, then so could others. With enough study, with enough patience and clarity, he could begin to decode the design of any mote he managed to get his hands on. Break them down. Understand their structure.
Kael flipped the knife one last time between his fingers, then drove it cleanly into its sheath. A smile crept across his lips, slow and deliberate.
To any outsider, he would have looked unwell, maybe even insane. Just a lone man, sitting on a crumbling wall in the dead of night, smiling up at the moon. But he didn't care. Let them think what they will.
'Mote recipes…'
His smile widened, but his eyes stayed fixed on the pale light above.
Where would one even begin with such a thing?
To the world, mote recipes were rare, sacred artifacts. A Luminaire could live and die, pass through multiple lifetimes, and never touch even a single one. Noble families guarded them more fiercely than gold, more zealously than bloodlines. Some taught them to their children at the age of three, burning them into memory to avoid the risk of paper. To lose one was a tragedy. To steal one was an act of war. Entire cities had changed hands over a single, powerful recipe.
And Kael…? He wouldn't need to chase them.
He would create them.
A heavy breath left his lungs, turning to mist in the cold night air. He exhaled slowly, deliberately, as if releasing the weight of the world from his chest. Then, finally, his gaze dropped from the moon.
His eyes settled on the horizon, quiet, distant, and waiting.
Whether it was the clarity of the path ahead, or simply the moon hanging so silently beautiful in the sky, Kael couldn't say. But the words came to him unbidden, and before he realized it, they were already leaving his lips.
"Heaven favors none, or so it seems,
It crowns the loud, and buries dreams.
It feeds the fool, denies the wise,
Then veils its will behind the skies.
But heaven is not cruel or blind,
It simply waits, to test the mind.
It grants no gifts, no whispered grace,
It hides the path, then masks the face.
For those who crawl through nights alone,
With bloodied hands and sharpened bone,
It opens doors no gold could buy,
And plants its stars in silent sky.
So curse it not when silence stays.
It waits for those who do not pray."
A sigh escaped his lips.
"I need to stop doing that," Kael muttered.
His head tilted forward slightly, eyes closed. A quiet smile tugged at his lips.
Kael pushed himself off the stone wall, landing with a soft thud on the ground below. The cool earth gave a muted crunch beneath his boots as he straightened up, brushing the back of his coat with one hand.
He glanced to both sides, taking in the moonlit shoreline stretching out in either direction. The waves lapped quietly against the rocks, silver glinting off each crest. It was calm. Still. The kind of night that made the world feel far away.
Sliding a hand into his coat pocket, he pulled out a pair of black leather gloves. The worn texture fit perfectly against his fingers, molded by habit and time. He slipped them on without rush, each movement slow and deliberate. Then, without a word, he started walking, his boots carrying him steadily along the shore.
This was the one night, maybe the only night, Kael allowed himself to drift a little. Not aimlessly, but not with the usual sharp purpose either. Just enough to feel human again.
And what was so special about this day, one might ask?
Perhaps nothing, really. But for Kael, it had unassumingly become a tradition, or at least something that felt like one.
It was Casandra's birthday. His younger sister.
Kael had been ten when their mother passed. Casandra was only seven. From that moment on, it was just the two of them. Kael had to grow up fast, too fast. He scraped by doing whatever he could: stealing, taking odd jobs, working himself to the bone. And while he managed to keep them afloat, it came at a cost.
There was never any real time for her. Not truly.
All he could do was bring home books and make her study while he was gone. It wasn't fun for her, and he knew that. But she listened anyway. She always did. And even if it hurt him to see her so quiet, so withdrawn, he convinced himself it was necessary. That hard work would buy her a better future, even if he couldn't give her much of a present one.
When he came home at night, he was too tired to talk. He'd make them food, eat in silence, and sleep the moment he lay down.
But there was one promise he made to himself, one day he refused to give away, no matter how desperate things got.
Her birthday.
Every week, every job, every risk, he'd stash away a little coin, slowly building a small reserve. And when that day came, they'd both wash up, put on the best clothes they owned, and walk down the street to a quiet little restaurant.
They'd order a meal each. Sit together. Talk. Smile.
And for that one day, Kael would do nothing but spend time with Casandra.