Birdsong filtered through the canopy, bright and cheerful in a way that felt obscene given the dried blood crusting Cael's skin.
His eyes snapped open. Light—actual daylight—streamed through the gaps in the trees, scattering across the forest floor in dappled patches. The mist had burned away, replaced by warm golden beams that painted everything in soft amber.
Cael shot upright, head swimming.
"Whoa." He pressed a palm to his temple, the world tilting before settling. "How long was I out for?"
His body felt different. Lighter, somehow, though every muscle ached like he'd been put through a meat grinder. He stared down at his hands, at the dried gore caking his fingers, the half-healed gashes on his forearm that should've been far worse.
"What the hell happened?"
"You must have just awakened."
The voice cut through the clearing—calm, unhurried, definitely not his own.
Cael jolted, scrambling backward on instinct. His head whipped toward the sound, heart slamming against his ribs all over again.
A group stood at the edge of the clearing. Two girls, three guys, all of them watching him with varying degrees of curiosity. They carried weapons—swords strapped to hips, a bow slung across one girl's back, a massive axe resting on a broad-shouldered man's shoulder. Armor too, scuffed and travel-worn, the kind that had seen real use.
Who the hell are they? Cael's mind raced through possibilities, none of them comforting. Bandits? Soldiers? Cannibals? people with weapons and bloodstains usually aren't here to offer snacks.
The one at the front—tall, dark hair pulled back, a sword sheathed at his side—seemed to read the panic written across Cael's face. He raised both hands, palms open, the universal gesture for I'm not about to gut you.
"Don't be startled." His voice stayed even, almost amused. "We just finished a mission. We were heading back to the nearest city when we spotted you lying here."
Cael's eyes darted between them, every muscle coiled to bolt despite the fact his legs probably wouldn't carry him three steps.
The leader nodded toward the wolf's corpse, still sprawled in its pool of dried blood, skull caved in from Cael's handiwork.
"Then we saw the beast you killed." A faint smirk tugged at his mouth. "Put two and two together. Figured you took it down, and that triggered your awakening."
Awakening. The word landed strange in Cael's ears, foreign and weighted with meaning he couldn't grasp. That's the second time he's said it. What does that even mean?
He glanced back down at his hands, then at the dead wolf, then at the strangers watching him like he was some puzzle they hadn't quite solved.
"Awakening," he echoed, the word clumsy on his tongue.
One of the girls—red hair, a quiver of arrows on her back—tilted her head. "You don't know what an awakening is?"
"Humor me." Cael forced a crooked grin despite the dread pooling in his gut. When in doubt, deflect with charm. Worked great in— He stopped. Worked great where, exactly? The memory slipped away before he could catch it, just like all the others.
The leader's eyebrows rose a fraction. He exchanged a look with the axe-wielder, something unspoken passing between them.
"Kid," he said slowly, lowering his hands at last, "either you hit your head harder than that wolf hit you, or you're about to have a very interesting day."
Cael's grin twitched.
Yeah. That's not ominous at all.
The leader stepped closer, boots crunching over dead leaves. He stopped a respectful distance away, close enough to talk, far enough that Cael didn't bolt.
"Name's Darin." He tapped his chest. "I lead this sorry bunch."
"Charming introduction," the red-haired girl muttered. She gave Cael a small wave. "I'm Lyra. The one who actually keeps us alive when things go sideways."
The axe-wielder snorted. Big guy, shaved head, a beard that looked like it could survive a forest fire. "Don't let her fool you. I'm the one doing the heavy lifting. Brokk."
"Subtle as always," said the second girl. Shorter, dark braids, a staff strapped across her back that hummed faintly with something Cael couldn't name. "I'm Mira. Healer. Which means I'm the reason none of these idiots have bled out yet."
The last two—a pair of lean young men who looked near enough alike to be brothers—offered quick nods.
"Tobias."
"Finn."
"Cael," Darin repeated, and the way he said it carried the weight of a question. He crouched down to Cael's level, elbows resting on his knees. "That your name?"
"Yeah." Cael paused, dragging through the fog in his skull, reaching for anything else—a surname, a face, a home. Nothing answered. Just an empty white space where a life should've been. "Cael. That's... that's all I've got."
Darin studied him a moment longer. "Alright then, Cael. What's a kid like you doing all the way out here in Greyveil? This isn't exactly a place you wander into for a stroll."
Cael's gaze drifted to the wolf's corpse, the crystal spikes jutting from its hide catching the sunlight, glittering dull and wrong against the dried blood.
"Honestly?" He let out a breath. "No idea. I don't remember how I got here. One second I'm fighting that thing for my life, next I'm bashing its skull in with a rock, and then—" He snapped his fingers. "Lights out. Woke up to your charming faces."
Mira pushed past Brokk, braids swinging, a small frown creasing her brow as she crossed the clearing.
"Sounds like amnesia." She knelt beside him without asking, far too comfortable for someone he'd met thirty seconds ago. Before he could object, her hand settled flat against his forehead. "Hold still."
"Hey—" Cael flinched, jerking back an inch. "What are you doing?"
"Relax." Lyra leaned against a tree, arms folded, entirely unbothered. "She's a healer, remember? She's not gonna melt your brain. Probably."
"Probably," Cael echoed. "Real reassuring, thanks."
Mira ignored them both. Her eyes drifted shut, then opened again—and this time they glowed, a soft green light kindling behind her irises like embers catching wind. The same glow bled down her arm, gathering in her palm where it pressed against his skin.
Then the circle appeared.
It bloomed in the air just above her hand, a ring of pale light etched with symbols that turned slow and deliberate, layered one inside another like the gears of some impossible clock. Lines connected and split, runes pulsing in rhythm with the soft hum he'd heard earlier from her staff.
What the hell is that?
Cael froze, every nerve forgotten. The pain in his arm, the ache in his ribs, the strangers surrounding him—all of it fell away. He couldn't look at anything but the circle hovering inches from his face.
And the longer he stared, the more he saw.
It wasn't just glowing light. There was structure to it. Patterns within patterns, geometry folding back on itself, threads of something fine and luminous weaving between the runes. He could see how the symbols linked, the way energy poured from one shape into the next, channelled and shaped and directed like water through a precise system of canals. One rune fed power into three others. Those split it, refined it, pushed it down into the line that connected to Mira's palm.
It was like watching a machine he'd never seen before, yet somehow understanding exactly what each piece did the moment his eyes landed on it.
That symbol pulls the energy in. That one stabilises it. The outer ring holds the whole thing together so it doesn't collapse.
The knowledge slotted into his mind, clean and effortless, as though he'd always known it.
"Huh," Mira murmured, the glow fading from her eyes. The circle dissolved into motes of light. "Your mana pathways are a mess. Brand new, untrained. Definitely just awakened." She tilted her head. "But the memory loss isn't physical. Whatever happened to you, I can't heal it."
Cael barely heard her.
He was still staring at the empty air where the circle had been.
"—hey. Hey." Mira snapped her fingers in front of his nose. "You with me?"
Cael blinked, the empty air finally releasing him. "Sorry—what was that?"
"Yep." Brokk hefted his axe back onto his shoulder, shaking his head. "Amnesia. Poor kid's brain got scrambled worse than I thought."
He turned, boots crunching as he ambled toward Darin. "So what do we do with him?"
Darin rubbed the back of his neck, watching Cael with a thoughtful frown.
"We can't just leave him here." Mira reached over and ruffled Cael's hair, the gesture so casual he didn't even have time to dodge it. Her fingers lingered a moment, and she leaned in, studying his face like she was reading something written there. "You know, I've never seen someone with hair and eyes as pretty as yours."
Cael leaned back. "What?"
"Oh, come on." Lyra pushed off the tree, already digging through the leather pouch at her hip. "Don't tell me you forgot about that too." She fished out a small hand mirror, the glass cracked at one corner, and tossed it underhand. "Here. Have a look at yourself, pretty boy."
Cael caught it against his chest. Turned it over. Lifted it to his face.
The person staring back wasn't him.
Or—it was, but wrong. The features were familiar enough, the same jaw, the same shape to his face, but the hair falling across his forehead wasn't the dirty brown he remembered. It was white. Snow-white, pale as fresh frost, catching the sunlight in a soft silver sheen.
And the eyes.
His grey eyes were gone. In their place sat two pools of deep icy blue, and within them—stars. Faint pinpricks of light drifting through the colour, shifting like a slow current, like someone had poured a fragment of the night sky into his irises.
"What—" His voice cracked. He angled the mirror, tilting it, half-expecting the reflection to glitch and snap back to normal. It didn't. "What happened to me? My hair was brown. It was brown, I—"
"Must be your awakening." Darin crouched again, peering at him with new interest, the way someone might look at a coin that turned out to be worth far more than they'd thought. "I've heard of it. Powerful Talents leave marks. Changes the body sometimes." He straightened. "We should take you to the adventurer's guild in the nearest city. They'll know what to do with you."
"Don't say it like that." Mira shot Darin a look, then softened, turning back to Cael with a smile that reached all the way to her eyes. "You make it sound like we're dropping off a stray dog." She tilted her head. "Listen. You want to come with us to the nearest city? From there we can get you sorted—new clothes, some food. You look like you haven't eaten in days."
Cael lowered the mirror, the stranger's nebula eyes vanishing from view.
New body. No memories and a forest full of crystal wolves. He turned it over, weighing it. No money. No idea where I am. And a group of armed strangers who, so far, haven't tried to kill or eat me.
He glanced at the dead wolf, then back at the five faces watching him.
Yeah. Beggars, choosers, all that.
He pasted on the most harmless, grateful expression he could manage—wide eyes, slight smile, every ounce of please-adopt-the-orphan he could muster.
"Yeah," he said. "Thanks. I'd really appreciate that."
Lyra snorted. "Oh, he's good. Look at that face."
"Don't encourage him." Brokk turned toward the treeline. "City's a half-day's walk. Let's move before something bigger smells that carcass."