The bottle stayed silent for days.
Kael didn't touch it.
Didn't unwrap it.
He carried it inside the amulet pouch, sealed between layers of leather and prayer thread. Elric had once scoffed at such charms.
But Kael had begun to believe in silence.
He trained.
Harder than before.
Longer.
With no goal other than control.
The Nameless Verse moved through him like a river beneath ice—distant, sluggish, but present. His breath no longer caught. His thoughts no longer scattered.
He didn't break through. Not truly.
But one morning, something shifted.
He caught it.
A thread of the Verse moving when he asked it to—softly, quietly. Not pushed. Not forced.
Just... willing.
A warmth spread from his chest to his fingertips. No light. No glow. Just control.
For once, he didn't chase progress.He held it.
In the courtyard outside the barn, voices drifted in.
"Still in there?" one boy muttered. "Does he even train like the rest of us?"
"Doesn't matter," another replied. "He's Elric's charity case. Let him rot with the mushrooms."
Kael didn't flinch. He was used to being unseen.And maybe it was better that way.
High in the cliffs above the Hollow, an old man stirred.
His face was lined. His robes faded to the color of dust.
He had been asleep. Or meditating. Or dead—it was hard to tell.
But something below had quieted. Not flared. Not surged. Just... quieted.
The man opened one eye.
"Finally holding still," he murmured.
Then closed it again.
Kael didn't know.
He stood, gathered his tools, and began grinding a fresh batch of salves.
He would adjust Riven's stabilizer again tonight.
Not because it was needed—
But because he could.
Later that day, footsteps sounded outside the barn.
Riven leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. "I've been waiting twenty minutes."
Kael didn't look up. "Then you're early."
Riven smirked. "This one better last longer. The last dose barely made it through the session."
"I've refined the ratios," Kael said. "But it depends on how you use it."
He handed over a small cloth-wrapped packet.
Riven took it, turned it over, and nodded.
"Appreciate it," he said. Then added, more carefully, "Still not free, though."
Kael met his eyes. "No. It's not."
They exchanged no further words.
As Riven walked away, Kael returned to his work—grinding, sorting, measuring.
But then—
A subtle shift.
Something stirred within the pouch at his side.
Not movement. Not heat.
A pulse.
Slow. Deliberate. Like the soundless heartbeat of something… watching.
Kael froze.
He didn't look down.
Didn't reach for it.
But in that stillness, he felt it:
A presence.
Not from the pouch, but from within the thing sealed inside.
It wasn't trying to control him.Not yet.
But it was aware.
Aware of him.
And for the first time, he sensed that it had been waiting.
Waiting for him to be ready.
Waiting for the moment when his will wouldn't be shattered by what lay inside.
He stood still for a long breath.
Then, quietly, he whispered:
"I'm not yours."
And softer still—almost to himself:
"Not yet."