Aerith, Year 927 after the Veilfall
Emotion is a curse. Feeling is forbidden. Love is a weapon... and Kael had none left to wield.
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The sun had set long ago, but the sky still bled red. The reflection shimmered across the silent lake behind the monastery walls, where Kael Evaris, seventeen, sat alone — motionless, breath still, eyes hollow.
He was told never to feel.
And for the last ten years, he hadn't.
The monks of Aerith had taught him:
"Emotion breaks the Veil."
"Emotion summons the Forgotten."
"Emotion is sin."
Kael had obeyed.
No laughter. No grief. No anger.
Only silence.
But that silence cracked tonight.
---
Somewhere deep within him, a scream echoed — not of his own voice, but of the boy he used to be, the one who once cried when his mother vanished in blue fire. The one who remembered her last words:
"Never stop feeling, Kael. Even when they teach you to forget."
He had forgotten.
Until now.
---
A Trigger from the Past
"KAEL!" a voice shouted across the stone courtyard.
He didn't turn. He knew who it was.
Brother Cren, the monk who raised him — the one who gave him bread but never warmth. The one who struck him every time he flinched, because flinching was feeling, and feeling was a crack in the Veil.
"You've been here all night again?" Brother Cren's footsteps stopped behind him.
Kael didn't answer.
"Still staring at that lake like it'll speak to you?"
Kael's lips parted. "No, Brother."
"You're lying." The monk's voice dropped cold. "Your mind is drifting again. I see it. The sadness. The curiosity. You want to remember your mother, don't you?"
Kael remained silent.
"Say it."
"…Yes."
A moment of breathless stillness.
Then the monk struck him.
Not hard — just enough to make Kael's head jerk sideways. Enough to remind him: Feel nothing. Be nothing.
But this time, something broke.
The pain didn't vanish.
It pulsed.
---
The Awakening Begins...
That pulse grew. A thrum in his chest. A flicker under his skin.
Then… it happened.
The statues around the lake — old, headless gods carved from cursed marble — began to hum.
Kael gasped. His hands trembled.
"What… is this?" he whispered, but no one answered.
Not even Brother Cren — who now stood frozen, staring at Kael like he'd seen a ghost.
"You..." the monk said, stepping back. "You've... awakened."
From Kael's fingertips, faint crimson threads of light began to rise — emotion made visible, raw, uncontrolled. Memories—long buried—rushed forward:
His mother's smile.
The fire.
A burning mark on her palm—same as the one now glowing on his wrist.
Kael fell to his knees. The ground cracked beneath him.
"I told you never to feel," Brother Cren muttered, horror in his voice. "You've doomed us all…"
---
A Mysterious Figure Appears
Suddenly, a cloaked figure stepped from the trees beyond the monastery wall.
A girl. No older than Kael.
She removed her hood — revealing a silver scar stretching across her left eye. And on her palm, a mark… identical to Kael's.
"You found it," she said softly.
"Found what?" Kael choked out.
"The truth. You're not cursed, Kael. You're the key."
The world trembled.
Above them, a ripple tore through the sky — a crack in the fabric of the world itself.
The Veil was breaking.
---
"Who are you?" Kael asked.
She smiled faintly.
"The one who remembers everything they made you forget."