Threads of Fire

Kael met Elira again the next day.

She was waiting at the same crooked pine tree, sitting cross-legged like before, hands folded neatly in her lap. Her eyes tracked him long before he stepped into the clearing.

"You came back," she said.

Kael raised an eyebrow. "So did you."

Elira smirked slightly, just enough to hint that she had already decided something about him.

Kael settled onto the ground beside her, this time closer. A soft wind stirred the long grass around them. Somewhere in the distance, a woodpecker tapped rhythmically against bark.

For a while, neither of them spoke.

It wasn't silence filled with awkwardness.

It was stillness. Mutual, unspoken understanding.

Then, Elira said, "You can feel it, can't you? The threads."

Kael blinked. "Threads?"

She reached into the satchel resting by her side and pulled out a dull stone — smooth, worn, clearly handled many times. She placed it on the ground between them and traced a finger just above it, not touching it.

A faint shimmer followed her motion — thin, like spider silk. Invisible to most eyes. Mana, teased into visibility.

"They connect everything," she said quietly. "Even us. Even now."

Kael watched, fascinated.

She wasn't manipulating it the way mages did in his past life. She was listening to it. Weaving, in the most literal sense of the word. Guiding, not forcing.

"How long have you known?" he asked.

"Since I was three. It hurt at first. All the noise. All the feelings. But then I found the right pattern." She looked at him, gaze steady. "And now I can tell when something doesn't belong. Like you."

Kael didn't react outwardly. But the words struck.

"I'm not from here," he said, more to the air than to her. "I wasn't born in this world. Not truly."

She nodded, like she already knew.

---

They spent hours together.

No games. No childlike stories. Just quiet, meaningful conversation about things no other children could grasp.

Elira called it the Lattice. A natural web of energy woven into the world's fabric, responsive to emotion and intent. She hadn't read about it — she felt it. She moved through it like a dancer through rhythm.

Kael called it mana, because that's what it had been in his world. Elemental. Weaponized. Mastered through structure and dominance.

And slowly, they began to test each other.

---

Kael summoned heat first — a flicker in his palm, brighter than last time. It didn't last, but it glowed long enough to impress.

Elira didn't clap or gasp. She just nodded, thoughtful.

"Your flame has memory," she said. "It wants to be more than fire."

He frowned. "How can flame want anything?"

Elira just tilted her head. "Why wouldn't it?"

Then she touched the stone again — and this time, it moved. Not with strength. Not with force. But as if it had chosen to slide across the grass toward her.

Kael stared. "You're not controlling it."

"No," she agreed. "I'm listening. And asking nicely."

He snorted. "That would've gotten you killed where I came from."

She looked at him sideways. "Maybe that's why you had to leave it."

---

The sun arced across the sky as the hours passed, and neither of them noticed how late it had grown. For the first time, Kael felt the weight of the past fall away — just a little. Enough to breathe.

But as the shadows grew long, something shifted.

A breeze swept through the clearing — sharp, sudden, colder than the day allowed.

Elira stiffened. "Did you feel that?"

Kael rose to his feet instantly, instincts on high alert. "That wasn't weather."

He closed his eyes, sensing deeper. There — at the edge of perception — a ripple in the threads. Not like before. Not gentle. Not natural.

Twisted.

Wounded.

Like something had clawed through the weave and left a hole behind.

"It's close," Elira whispered.

Kael opened his eyes. "Too close."

---

They didn't run. They backed away slowly, careful not to break the rhythm around them. Kael wasn't sure why, but he knew Elira was right — something had found them, or nearly had.

Back at the edge of the woods, they parted ways silently. No need to say what they were both thinking:

The peace was ending.

The hidden was stirring.

And whatever had whispered to Kael before… it wasn't alone anymore.

---

That night, Kael sat with his father on the front steps. Dren was humming a low, familiar tune, smoothing a piece of pine with a carving blade. The stars shimmered above them in the still sky.

"Everything alright, son?" Dren asked.

Kael nodded, but his voice was quiet. "Just… thinking."

"About the world?"

Kael hesitated, then gave a small smile. "Something like that."

Dren grunted in agreement. "That's good. The world could use more people who think."

Kael didn't answer. He was thinking — just not about the world his father knew.

He was thinking about the Lattice.

About Elira.

About the cold wind.

And the fact that for all their gifts and foresight… they were still children.

For now.