CHAPTER EIGHT: THE WEIGHT OF STILL FLAME

  [Age Thirteen | Duskwell, Season of Hollow Winds]

  Midday had reached its apex, casting long, hard shadows across Tharnak's central clearing. The air shimmered slightly with heat, thick with dust and sweat and the scent of dried blood. The training grounds pulsed like a second heart to the tribe — every cry, every thud, every blade meeting bone-stuffed hide echoed the raw rhythm of survival. There were no war drums that day, yet the sound of movement alone felt ceremonial.

  Stone-seated elders lined the perimeter like weathered statues, their expressions carved from old storms and long memory. Their eyes tracked each movement with the precision of hunters, their gnarled hands occasionally twitching as if remembering battles fought decades before. Some muttered quiet critiques between cracked lips. Others simply watched. Judging. Weighing. Measuring.

  "The tall one favors his right too much," whispered one elder, his voice rough as stone against stone. "Three heartbeats slow on the counter."

  "The other needs to plant his feet deeper," another replied. "First wind would topple him."

  In the center, Rukk's footwork beat a precise cadence against the dirt. He and two others circled and struck, their bone rods clashing and hissing through the air. Dust rose with each pivot, catching golden light before settling again on sweat-slick skin. One youth roared with every swing, throat straining, eyes wide with focused rage. Another grunted through his teeth, each sound sharp and controlled. Rukk, silent and smooth, moved like wind chasing through reeds.

  "You're telegraphing your strikes, Mekkar," Rukk said, deflecting a particularly aggressive blow. "I can read your shoulder before your wrist moves."

  The larger youth scowled. "Reading doesn't matter if you can't stop the force."

  "Force without direction is just—" Rukk began, then froze mid-sentence.

  Then something shifted. Not loud. Not visible. But felt.

  The noise didn't stop. It simply hushed. Like a fire suddenly noticing rain.

  Sarkan stepped into the clearing.

  He wore no armor. No fangs. No trophies. Just a plain black wrap at the waist and an old, thick-stitched sash across one shoulder. No signal of challenge. No warning.

  But his presence sank into the dust like a weighted spear.

  One of the sparring youths faltered. A rhythm broke. Another glanced toward the edge of the circle, eyes wide without knowing why. The very air seemed to hesitate around him, as though space itself recognized something different in his bearing.

  "Did you feel that?" one whispered, lowering his weapon without conscious decision.

  "Feel what?" asked another, but his voice carried no conviction.

  Rukk turned and saw him. His face brightened, muscles relaxing from battle-readiness into something more open. He smiled — then paused. A hesitation, as if some deep instinct whispered: stay still. Something had changed in his friend, something that transcended the physical yet manifested through it.

  "You walk lighter than before," Rukk said, studying Sarkan with a mixture of welcome and wariness. The dirt around his feet had barely been disturbed, yet somehow seemed more compressed. "But the ground feels it more."

  Sarkan nodded once. His expression unreadable, eyes holding depths that hadn't been there before. The subtlest curve touched the corner of his mouth, not quite a smile.

  "Stillness carries weight. Movement only reveals it."

  His voice carried differently now—not louder but somehow reaching further. It seemed to settle into the bones rather than the ears.

  On the far edge, Varn leaned against a cracked totem post. Broader than before, his upper arms painted with ritual scars and symbols that spoke of hunts, wins, wounds. The afternoon light caught the edges of the markings, making them seem to shift like living things. His mouth tightened. His gaze narrowed.

  "He moves too calm," he muttered to no one, though several heads turned at his words. "Too clean. That's not training. That's something else."

  His fingers tapped an uneasy rhythm against his thigh. There was something about Sarkan's presence that disturbed him now, more than the rivalry they'd always shared.

  "What new trick is this?" Varn called suddenly, pushing away from the post and stepping forward. "Return from the wilderness with borrowed silence? Even ghosts make more noise than you."

  Sarkan's eyes shifted to him, but before he could respond, a younger orc stepped between them. He bowed slightly to Sarkan — an invitation. The clearing had gone completely silent now, even the wind seeming to hold its breath.

  "Show us what the wilderness taught you," the young challenger said, voice carrying both respect and curiosity.

  Sarkan accepted with a breath that seemed to center not just himself but the air around him.

  The circle opened. Dust curled. Expectant silence stretched.

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  They moved.

  The youth swung wide — eager, raw, powerful. His bone rod cut a perfect arc through the air, whistling slightly. It was a good strike, properly formed, committed. Sarkan didn't block.

  He shifted.

  And the air… bent.

  There was no flare. No shimmer. Just a subtle sway — as though the space between them had leaned away. As though reality itself made room.

  The attacker's leg faltered. Momentum warped. His strike went off-angle — not by force, but by absence. He stumbled, confusion flashing across his face.

  Sarkan pivoted and gave a simple, open-handed nudge to the chest. Barely a touch, yet the youth landed flat on his back, breathless, blinking at the sky in bewilderment.

  The match ended before it began.

  Murmurs stirred like leaves in wind. Elders exchanged long glances, their aged eyes narrowing in recognition of something both ancient and new.

  "He's not flaring mana," one murmured, leaning forward. "He's not bracing. Not resisting."

  "He's... redirecting the space around him," another replied, voice hushed with something between wonder and unease.

  An elder with a split horn raised her hand. "I've seen this once before. Long ago. It's not outer strength. It's inner alignment."

  Rukk watched in silence as Sarkan helped the youth to his feet, murmured something only the two of them could hear, and turned away. The fallen challenger's expression shifted from confusion to something like revelation.

  "What did he say to you?" someone asked him later.

  "He said, 'Don't fight the earth. Ask it to carry you.'"

  Rukk caught up two steps later, falling into stride beside Sarkan.

  "What did you find out there?" he asked, searching his friend's face for traces of the boy who had left. The features were the same, but something fundamental had shifted beneath them.

  Sarkan didn't look back at the training grounds where all eyes still followed them.

  "Only that listening is faster than shouting."

  His voice carried no boast, only quiet certainty. He squeezed Rukk's shoulder once—a gesture of old friendship that somehow felt both familiar and utterly changed.

  He left before anyone else could step forward. Not from pride. From clarity.

  As he passed the edge of the trees, the forest stirred. Roots curled beneath the soil. Branches breathed. Birds watched but did not flee. Even the smallest creatures seemed to acknowledge him not as predator or prey, but as something else entirely.

  Even the wind bent slightly around him. The deeper resonance did not manifest as flame or force. It unfolded in silence. In balance.

  And still, the fire inside him did not want to burn. It wanted to observe. To hear. To carry.

  He was not a threat in the old way. But in some wordless instinct, the tribe began to understand—

  He was something they could not name.

  Dusk arrived not with thunder, but with gold. A soft hue rolled through the trees, spilling gently into Sha'vara's hut. Inside, the walls glowed from the coals of the brazier, shaped like a cracked lotus of old iron. Shadows danced across collections of oddities—teeth from creatures that no longer walked, stones from mountains long since crumbled, and herbs whose names had been forgotten by all save her.

  Sarkan sat cross-legged before the brazier, the coals pulsing faintly beneath the curled strands of sacred herbs. Smoke rose in braids, winding around feathers and bone charms hanging from the rafters. The old beastbone mask above the doorway looked more solemn than ever, its hollow eyes seeming to watch with ancient attention.

  "The spirits whisper your name differently now," Sha'vara said, breaking the silence as she moved around the small space. Her voice carried both strength and age, like a tree that had weathered countless storms. "They taste it before speaking it."

  Sarkan watched her hands—steady despite their years—as they worked with practiced precision. "Do they fear it?"

  "No," she replied without hesitation. "They respect it. There's a difference." She paused, her fingers hovering over dried bundles of herbs hanging from a low beam. "Fear runs. Respect listens."

  Sha'vara didn't speak further as she brewed slowly, measuring each motion with memory rather than sight. The tea was rich—sleeproot, ashrose, something older that Sarkan couldn't name but recognized as smelling of deep earth and distant stars.

  "There was once a warrior," she said softly, her voice blending with the fire's breath as she finally seated herself across from him, "Fye-bonded. His name is not spoken now, only whispered in the leywind. They say he walked into the rift beneath the northern sky."

  The flames between them flickered, casting her weathered face in amber and shadow. Her eyes, though clouded with age, seemed to see through flesh to something beneath.

  Sarkan's hands cradled the tea. His fingers were still, but his eyes followed the way the steam rose, as though trying to read something beyond the scent.

  "What happened to him?" he asked, though something in his voice suggested he already knew the answer.

  "He heard too much," she continued. "Every spirit, every stone, every echo. He let them speak through him. And in doing so... he forgot how to speak for himself."

  She sipped. The sound was quiet. Purposeful. The liquid barely rippled despite her movement.

  "Do you still know which voice is yours?"

  Silence settled between them, heavier than mere absence of sound. The question hung in the air like the smoke—curling, expanding, touching everything in the small space.

  Sarkan's grip on the cup did not falter. His hands remained steady. The tea did not ripple.

  He set it down gently.

  "I remember my voice," he said. "But now, I can hear the rest."

  Something flickered across his expression—not doubt, but a momentary acknowledgment of the burden of such awareness. For an instant, the weight of what he carried showed in the tightening around his eyes.

  "And what do they say to you, these voices that aren't yours?" Sha'vara asked, leaning forward slightly.

  "They don't speak in words," Sarkan replied. "They speak in currents. In patterns. In the spaces between moments." He paused, searching for language to capture something beyond language. "It's like... feeling the heartbeat of something larger than yourself."

  Sha'vara studied him for a long moment. Her eyes, so often half-closed in reverie, opened fully. They were not old eyes. They were ancient ones—windows to memories that predated the tribe itself.

  She leaned forward, brushing a lock of hair behind his ear. Her fingers lingered against his skin, reading something written beneath it.

  "Then don't forget who listens when you speak, Sarkan." Her voice dropped lower, carrying an edge of warning that belied her gentle touch. "Not all spirits whisper softly. Some... answer."

  "And if they do?" he asked.

  "Then be certain you're prepared for their response." Her hand withdrew, but her gaze held his. "Power recognizes power, child. What acknowledges you will eventually challenge you."

  The brazier hissed. The herbs curled into fading blue. The tea cooled in the cup.

  Outside, the canopy shifted slightly. Not from wind. But from attention.

  "The sky watches tonight," Sha'vara murmured, glancing toward the thatched window where stars had begun to appear. "Something stirs in the upper airs."

  A distant shape passed behind the moon—too large for a bird, too silent for thunder.

  "The old ones are curious about you," she said. "They seldom take notice of our kind. Be wary of such attention."

  And beneath that sky, in silence too vast to speak, Sarkan closed his eyes. Not to sleep. But to listen.

  In the stillness between heartbeats, something answered.

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