Kael had intended to wait for One before attempting anything. It would've been wiser, safer. But something inside him—call it resolve, or maybe recklessness—decided otherwise.
He sat cross-legged in the training room, exhaling slowly, as though the breath itself might carry away the tension rooted deep in his chest. Fear hovered at the edges of his mind like a patient shadow. But he focused.
Inhale. Hold. Exhale—slow, deliberate, steady.
He guided a thread of energy, almost imperceptible, toward the place he remembered the mark had appeared: just over his left chest. He dared not rush. He kept the flow low, measured—like water tracing the edges of a stone—adding more only as the seconds crawled by.
He didn't want the mark to awaken suddenly. If it did, it might overwhelm him. Instead, he would coax it into existence, gently and patiently, like waking a sleeping beast with a lullaby.
And it began to work.
