Spring came te that year, as if the earth itself were holding its breath.

  I was twelve and a half now, and the dagger I had forged years ago was no longer just a tool. It had become an unanswered question—and I was learning how to live with uncertainty.

  Kai knows about my training now. Not because I told him, but because he followed me one night and saw me practicing in the clearing just beyond the forest’s edge. I felt his presence, of course—his breathing was too loud, his footsteps too deliberate. But I let him watch. Some things need witnesses.

  The next day, he showed up at the forge holding two wooden sticks, shaped like daggers.

  “I’m not asking to be like you,” he said, his voice steady though his hands were shaking. “I’m asking to stand beside you.”

  There was no envy in his eyes. No hunger for power. Just resolve—the kind that comes from knowing you’re about to walk into darkness and choosing not to do it alone.

  “Alright,” I said. “Rule one: your left hand isn’t weaker. It’s just neglected. Remind it.”

  We trained every evening after the household work was done. At first, Kai was clumsy—dropping his sticks, tripping over his own feet, cursing under his breath. But he never quit. Slowly, over the weeks, his movements grew less frantic. His breathing steadier. His eyes sharper.

  One afternoon, as I was sharpening my bdes at the forge, I felt that pull again. Not from outside. From within.

  I had been holding mana for months now, learning its rhythm. But this time, I didn’t just hold it. I tried to shape it.

  I gathered a thin thread—not to strengthen my arm or make the bde glow. Just to see if I could wrap it around the edge, like water held in a cup.

  It slipped away immediately, spreading like smoke.

  I tried again. And again.

  My father watched from the other side of the forge, but he said nothing. He never did when I was experimenting.

  On the seventh attempt, something changed.

  For a single heartbeat, the mana stayed. It clung to the steel as if it had always belonged there—as if the bde had been waiting for this moment since the day it was forged.

  When I drew it across a leather strap, the cut was cleaner than any I had ever made. No tearing. No drag. No resistance. Just separation. Perfect, absolute separation.

  “You felt it,” my father said quietly.

  “Yes.”

  He nodded and returned to his work, but I saw something shift in his expression. Recognition, perhaps. Or relief.

  That night, I sat in my room with the dagger resting across my knees.

  I gathered the blue thread from the air—not with the frantic, desperate grasping I’d done as a child. This was like calling something that was already a part of me.

  For a full three minutes, the energy remained bound to the bde. No light. No sound. No visible change.

  Just silence, and perfect bance.

  My hands trembled as I set the dagger aside. Not from exhaustion, but from understanding. This wasn’t magic. It was discipline—the kind that comes from knowing exactly what you want, and refusing to let anything stand in your way.

  ---

  Kai found me the next evening by the stream, staring at my hands.

  “You did it, didn’t you?” He sat beside me. “Whatever it was you were chasing.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Most kids our age chase rabbits,” he said. “You chase something the world doesn’t even know exists.”

  “Maybe the world just forgot how to see it.”

  He smiled faintly. “Then remind me too.”

  I handed him the dagger. He took it carefully and closed his eyes, his face tight with concentration.

  After a long moment, he shook his head. “Still nothing.”

  “That’s fine. Maybe one day you’ll feel it. Or maybe you won’t. That doesn’t mean you aren’t strong.”

  “I’d rather be strong with you,” he said, “than gifted and alone.”

  ---

  Later, lying on my bed, I pressed the bde against my palm.

  The mana was gone now. But the memory remained—clean, quiet, like morning light on snow.

  And beneath that calm, I felt it again. Faint. Distant. The empty breath, waiting in the spaces between things.

  I gripped the dagger tighter.

  For the first time, I wondered: what if this energy isn’t just something I use?

  What if it’s part of me?

  And what if the empty breath is too?

  That thought should have terrified me.

  Instead, I smiled.

  Because the question was no longer whether I could become something greater.

  The question was whether I was ready to accept what I was already becoming.