Kael walked until his legs burned and his throat ached from the weight of unshed tears. Behind him, the village of Eldham disappeared into mist and memory, swallowed by the endless curtain of rain that trailed him like a shadow. The rain never stopped. It followed him with quiet footsteps, falling in steady sheets wherever he went. It soaked the ground beneath his feet, darkening the soil, leaving puddles in his wake. Yet, strangely, it never turned violent. It draped over him softly, as though the storm itself mourned with him. His mother's cries echoed in his ears. His father's final command crushed his chest with every step. His brother's silence was a blade Kael could not pull free. At first, Kael thought of turning back. Maybe, if he explained, if they saw him not as a curse but as their Kael — the boy loved by all — they would let him come home. But each time he pictured their faces, their recoiling steps, their accusing eyes, he remembered: they had chosen fear over him. Even Garrick. Even Lira. The sky was his only company now. The world beyond Eldham was vast and unfamiliar. Kael wandered past forests where towering pines whispered above him. He crossed rivers that rushed cold and fast, their banks swollen from his endless rain. Wildflowers bowed beneath the weight of the storm, their petals sagging under every drop. Days passed, though Kael did not count them. Hunger gnawed at him until he grew dizzy and weak. The little food he carried spoiled quickly, dampened by the rain. He foraged what he could — berries, roots, bitter leaves — but his body, once fed by his mother's careful hands, withered in the wild. Nights were the hardest. He built small shelters from fallen branches and wet leaves, but they provided little comfort. The rain drummed against him, soaking his clothes, chilling his bones. He shivered until his teeth chattered, curled tightly beneath what little cover he could find. Sleep did not bring peace. It brought dreams — vivid, strange, unrelenting. He saw faces. The hunter who had collapsed on Awakening Day. The merchant who had died gasping for air. Others whose guilt he had not known but whose deaths the rain had claimed. Their eyes stared at him in his dreams, wide, hollow, accusing. But they did not speak. Sometimes, Kael heard footsteps in the rain, soft and measured, as though someone walked beside him, just out of reach. Sometimes, he heard whispers, faint and distant, like words spoken through a veil. The rain was not random. It was not cruel. It fell with purpose. It followed him, but it did not harm him. He remembered the voice from the day he was cast out. "You are not cursed, Kael. You are chosen. The rain listens to you."But why? Why him? Why this power? Was he meant to bring death? To punish? To judge? He screamed into the trees more than once, his throat raw, his hands clenched into fists. "Why me? What do you want from me?" The rain answered with only silence and its steady fall. He stopped speaking after a while. His voice felt useless in a world where no one answered. His footsteps grew slower. His shoulders drooped. His hunger became a constant ache, but he pressed on, unsure where he was going, only knowing he could not go back. The forests grew denser the further he wandered. The trees were ancient here, their trunks thick and gnarled, their roots like twisted veins over the earth. The light barely touched the ground, trapped high in the thick canopy above. Still, the rain followed. It should have been impossible — the sky was nearly hidden, yet the rain always found him. He crossed into places where even the birds fell silent, where moss swallowed stones, where the air grew damp and heavy. His feet eventually found a path, narrow and overgrown. It seemed to pull him forward, guiding him somewhere he did not understand. There were stories told in Eldham, whispered among the elders by firelight — stories of places untouched by men, places where the world thinned and the Echoes walked. Places like the Forest of Echoes. Kael had never believed those stories. But now, as he followed the winding trail, he realized he had entered it. The Forest of Echoes. It was said no one returned from its depths. Kael paused at the edge, his body trembling from cold, hunger, and exhaustion. He could turn back — return to the open hills, to the rivers, to anywhere else. But there was nothing left behind him. His home had turned its back. His family had let him go. The rain still whispered, soft and steady, urging him forward. For the first time since his banishment, Kael stepped with purpose. If this forest held answers — or even just silence — he would face it. He took one step. Then another. The trees swallowed him whole. And the rain, faithful and endless, followed. The Forest of Echoes was unlike any place Kael had known. The trees were impossibly tall, their twisted trunks climbing into a sky he could no longer see. The air was thick, wet, and filled with a strange, humming quiet — as though the forest itself was listening. Here, the rain grew softer, falling in a steady mist that clung to Kael's skin like breath. His nights beneath the dark canopy became longer, and his dreams more vivid. The first face appeared when he slept against the hollow of an ancient tree. He thought it was just the memory of Awakening Day returning to torment him — but it wasn't a memory. It was clearer, sharper, as though the dead were reaching out through his dreams. The hunter — the one who had collapsed first — stood before him, his body whole but his eyes empty. "You knew," the man whispered. "You called the rain." "No," Kael choked out in the dream, stepping back. "I didn't… I didn't know." The hunter's voice echoed unnaturally. "The rain comes for the guilty. You called me." When Kael jolted awake, he was alone, except for the ever-falling rain. The next night, another face came. The merchant, the one whose family had lived in terror of him, appeared at the edge of Kael's restless sleep. "Your brain remembers," the merchant hissed. "You carry judgment in your bones." Kael shook his head violently, crying out in his sleep, begging the rain to stop, to leave him alone. But the dreams did not stop. Each night, more faces visited him — strangers and familiar ones, people whose names he barely remembered. Some pleaded. Some accused. Some simply stared. And always, the rain fell. By the fourth night, Kael began to understand something terrifying — the rain did not kill randomly. It did not fall blindly. It punished those whose hands were stained with guilt. Those who had taken life. And somehow, without knowing how, Kael had been the bridge. His power — his strange, unearthly connection to the rain — had judged them. It had heard their guilt. It had acted. But it had acted through him. The weight of that realization made him sick. He vomited bile into the wet leaves, his stomach too empty to offer anything more. Was it truly his power? Was it the rain's will? Or was he simply a vessel? The next night, his dreams twisted into something darker. He saw not just the dead, but his father — standing beneath a storm, his face unreadable. "You have brought shame upon us," his father said coldly. "The rain was meant to bless, not to destroy." Kael's brother appeared next, but not as he remembered. Garrick's face was pale, his eyes hollow like the others. "Why didn't you call the rain for me, Kael?" Garrick whispered, stepping closer. "Why didn't you save me?" "Save you from what?" Kael cried, reaching out. But Garrick dissolved into mist, his voice lingering in the rain. "You chose who would fall. You chose who would live." Kael woke up choking on his own breath, the rain dripping steadily from the leaves above him, as if it had been watching. He no longer trusted his dreams. He no longer trusted his mind. Every time he closed his eyes, they returned. The faces. The accusations. The impossible suggestion that somewhere, deep within himself, Kael had wanted them to fall. The rain knew who was guilty. It had moved for him. Had he wanted it? Had something dark inside him whispered permission? Or worse — had he always known the rain was his? When awake, Kael tested the rain carefully. He whispered to it, once in fear, then in curiosity. "Rain, do you hear me?" The pattering continued, steady, endless. "Did you… did you fall because of me?" A breeze stirred the leaves, but there was no answer. Yet when he closed his eyes, he could feel something — a presence in the rain, faint but aware. The rain was listening. Sometimes, when he focused, the rain would soften, falling in a gentle mist. Other times, when he shouted in frustration or grief, it would pour harder, as though responding to the storm within him. It terrified him. It fascinated him. Kael no longer questioned whether the rain was part of him. The dreams, the whispers, the rain's obedience — all of it pointed to the same truth. His power had awakened that day. It was simply not the one anyone expected. He was not of the earth. He was of the storm. But what did that mean? Was he meant to punish? Was he meant to save? The guilt gnawed at him. He was no killer. He did not choose those who died — or did he? His dreams suggested otherwise. On the sixth night in the Forest of Echoes, Kael finally dared to ask the question that haunted him most. "If I call the rain… can I make it stop?" The forest fell silent. Then, softly, the rain paused — just for a breath, just for a moment. A silence so complete it stopped his heart. And then the rain returned. Kael's breath trembled. His throat burned with a thousand questions, but he could not bear to speak them. The rain had obeyed him. It had heard him. It would follow him. And maybe — just maybe — it would answer him again. But the answers might come with a price. Kael moved deeper into the forest, his feet dragging, his heart heavy with fear and questions that had no answers. The trees here were different — older, denser, their trunks covered in thick layers of moss that muffled every sound. It was as though the forest itself breathed quietly, alive in ways he couldn't explain. Even the rain softened in this place. It no longer fell in loud, angry drops but instead settled into a constant, whispering mist, clinging to Kael's hair, his skin, his clothes. He knew the stories. The Forest of Echoes. The place no one returned from. A realm where the dead whispered through the trees. Where echoes of the past found you and would not let you go. Kael had always thought those were stories meant to scare children. Now, as he walked among the silent giants, he was not so sure. The deeper he went, the stranger the forest became. Sometimes, he would hear voices behind him — faint, soft, like the murmuring of people in the next room. When he turned, there was no one. Only the rain, always the rain. Other times, he would see flashes of movement — a figure in the distance, gone when he blinked. The shapes were never clear, only flickers at the edge of his vision, like the forest was teasing him, daring him to chase something that wasn't truly there. One night, while resting beneath a wide-rooted tree, Kael finally whispered to the rain, "Why did you bring me here?" There was no answer. But the rain shifted. It no longer felt cold. It felt… aware. Listening. "Is this where I'm meant to be?" he asked. The wind rustled the leaves gently, a sound that almost sounded like a yes. He pressed on. The path grew narrower, the trees crowding together, their twisted branches weaving into dark arches above him. The sunlight could no longer break through. He walked in a world of green shadows and silver rain. The moss beneath his feet was so thick he no longer heard his own steps. And then, suddenly — the whispers stopped. The rain paused. The entire forest held its breath. Kael froze. In front of him, nestled between the ancient trees, stood a stone unlike any he had seen before. It was tall, smooth, glistening with rain. Symbols he did not understand were carved into its surface, pulsing faintly with a silver glow. Drawn forward, Kael placed his hand on the stone. The moment his skin touched the damp surface, his ears filled with a rush of whispers — hundreds, maybe thousands, of voices all speaking at once. "The rain listens." "The rain remembers." "The rain judges." Kael yanked his hand back, but the whispers lingered, circling him. Then, one voice rose above the rest. "You are the rain's echo." His pulse thundered in his ears. "I don't understand!" he shouted into the silent woods. "What does that mean?" The forest gave no answer. But the stone shimmered faintly, and then the mist around him thickened, curling at his feet like living threads. From the mist, a figure stepped forward. It was not fully solid — more a shape of rain and shadow, but its presence made Kael's skin prickle. "You've come far," the figure said, its voice layered with the echo of many others. "The rain chose you because you are not blinded by the lies of the world. You feel the weight of truth." Kael's throat tightened. "I didn't choose this." "No," the figure agreed. "But you are bound to it now. The rain speaks to you, and through you, it will bring balance." Kael shook his head. "I don't want to bring death." The figure's rain-soaked form shimmered. "The rain does not bring death. It reveals what already lingers beneath." Kael felt his knees weaken. The figure stepped closer, and as it did, Kael could see its face more clearly — it was his own. His own eyes, filled with sorrow and understanding. "The rain is not your curse, Kael. It is your voice." Kael swallowed the lump in his throat. "Why me?" The figure smiled sadly. "Because you listened." And with that, the figure dissolved into mist, fading into the rain that still clung to Kael's shoulders. Alone again, Kael stood in the quiet, his heart pounding. The stone behind him pulsed one last time before going dark. The rain resumed, falling in soft, rhythmic drops. Kael continued walking, but something inside him had shifted. He was no longer just wandering. He was searching. For what, he did not yet know. But the rain — his rain — would guide him. And the forest, strange and alive, would not be the end of his journey. It was only the beginning.
