RELIC OF THE NAMELESS KING

2.

Kael’s POV

The breath burned in Kael’s chest, sharp and dry, like he’d inhaled thorns. Branches whipped across his arms, slashing his skin, and roots snatched at his boots as he ran deeper into the forest.

Kael didn’t look back. He couldn’t afford to look back. Not with the boys behind him; laughing, shouting, gaining ground.

“Run, Weaveless!” one of them bellowed. “You think you can hide in the trees forever?”

Their voices echoed in the dying light, cruel and wild, and Kael pushed harder, lungs screaming, legs trembling.

Another voice cut through the dusk, louder and cockier. “He’s fast for a gutter rat!”

“Must be all those years running from bath water,” a third sneered, and the others howled with laughter.

Kael gritted his teeth as his foot caught a raised root and he stumbled, nearly falling.

“Careful now!” someone jeered. “Don’t break those twiggy legs, Kael! Wouldn’t want you limping into the ruins like the rest of your kind!”

“Aw, don’t be like that,” came another voice, Decker’s, low and mocking. “We just want to talk. Like real gentlemen. Promise we’ll be gentle.”

That made the others laugh even harder. Kael could hear them crashing through the underbrush, their boots pounding closer, their breaths hungry.

He clenched his fists, ignored the sharp pain in his scraped palms, and kept running.

Eighteen years. That’s how long he’d been running.

Not always through woods or over hills, but running all the same; through classrooms, alleys, city markets, the cobbled walkways of Ardentum’s lower quarters.

Always running from the same thing: ridicule, fists, and the cold sting of rejection. The names changed, but the hatred didn’t.

“Weaveless.” “Deadblood.” “Shadowrat.” “Relic-thief.”

He’d heard them all. Carried them like bruises beneath his skin. Kael had been bullied his whole life. When his mother was alive, things had been… better. Not easy. Never easy. But bearable.

She used to hum to him as she worked late in the weaver’s quarters , her voice soft and lilting like birdsong at dawn. She’d stroke his hair when he cried and say, “You are more than what they see, Kael. One day, you’ll show them.”

But she died when he was ten. Fever took her in three nights. No magic to heal her. No relic to protect her.

No one left for him.

Since then, he’d been nothing more than a stain the academy tolerated out of obligation and pity.

“Still running, Kael?” a new voice called, Theo. Son of a city warden. Arrogant, heavy-handed, and cruel. “You’ve had years to train those little legs of yours, and you still can’t outrun me?”

“I told you he was weak,” someone else said. “No relic, no magic, no spine.”

“Bet he cries like a baby when he trips,” Decker added. “Let’s find out.”

Kael stumbled over a slick patch of moss but caught himself before he fell. The forest blurred around him. Wet, green, endless, but he knew these woods.

He knew the deer paths, the crumbling creek bed, the fallen hollow tree near the south ridge. He’d spent enough time here avoiding them to learn its veins by heart.

The ground dipped ahead. The stream.

He could just make out the glint of water in the fading light. If he could make it across, maybe he could double back. Lose them. Hide until morning.

Still, they were close. Too close.

He heard their footsteps pounding through the brush, the harsh snap of twigs beneath heavy boots, the sneers in their breathless voices.

“You’ve got nowhere to go, rat!”

Kael darted down a narrow path and leapt over a tangle of brambles. A thorn snagged his shirt and ripped it open at the side. His bare skin stung, cold air biting against the sweat that soaked him.

He didn’t cry out. Crying out made them chase harder.

It had started like it always did. A whisper behind his back and a shove in the corridor. A “Where’s your wand, Kael?” in that mocking tone. Then fists. Then boots. Then running.

Always running.

He didn’t have magic and to them, that was enough to torment him. It meant that he was nothing.

He burst through a wall of wet leaves and landed hard on the other side, with his knees jarring and lungs heaving. For a moment, he thought he’d lost them, when he didn’t hear their footsteps.

But then…

A stone slammed into Kael’s back, causing him to yelp and nearly lost his balance.

“Nice shot!” someone roared behind him.

Another rock flew past his ear. Then a third one that clipped his leg. He stumbled, fell hard on one knee, and pain shot up his thigh. Gritting his teeth, Kael scrambled up again, ignoring the blood running down his shin.

“Almost got him!”

“Don’t let him reach the old warded trees by the stream. He hides there like some scared little rat.”

At this point, he had no idea who was talking. Their voices were merged together and his brain had a hard time processing them, while trying to think of how he was going to survive.

This time, a fast arrow flew past his head, narrowly missing his left ear.

Kael hit the ground with a grunt, cheek scraping stone, as pain flared in his shoulder. Before he could scramble to his feet, another boot crushed into his ribs, knocking the air from him.

“Not so fast now, are you?” sneered Dorian Vale, youngest son of House Vale’s Lord. Broad shouldered, mean-eyed, always first to throw a punch. “Thought you’d outrun us, magicless trash?”

Magicless trash? That was a new one, Kael thought as he wheezed, trying to push up. A fist crashed into his jaw and knocked him sideways into the dirt, stopping that action.

“You think just because they let you study in the Academy you’re one of us?” hissed Joren, his cousin. “You’re a joke. A stain. You shouldn’t even be here.”

“Should’ve drowned you at birth,” muttered another voice, Decker.

They circled him like wolves and kicked him until he curled to protect himself. They laughed when he didn’t scream, but Dorian was more pissed off at him that he didn’t.

Kael tasted blood and earth, but he didn’t beg them. Not anymore. Hell, that was the last thing he was ever going to do, because it never helped.

“You think relics will ever choose someone like you?” Dorian laughed cruelly as he punched him. “You don’t even have the spark, Kael. You’re dead space. Useless.”

A boot struck his spine, and another crashed into his ribs at the same time. Kael coughed, his vision blurring. He didn’t know if it was from the beating, or blood oozing down his face.

Then…

Snap.

The boys froze.

Another snap. Closer.

The underbrush behind them rustled, but no wind moved. The forest had gone still. Too still that it brought chills on Kael’s body.

“… What was that?” Joren asked, voice faltering.

Kael sneaked a peak at the boys, to be sure it wasn’t one of them playing another prank. But instead of a smirk, Dorian narrowed his eyes, looking startled. “Probably just a deer.” He murmured.

A low growl answered him.

Not a deer.

Not even close, because Kael was sure that deer didn’t make that kind of sound. The boys spun around immediately with scared faces.

From the shadows beyond the trees, something emerged, facing them. Kael squinted his eyes but all he could see was a flicker of movement, too fast to follow, too dark to define. A shape. A presence.

Kael blinked, dazed, barely able to raise his head.

It was silent for a second… and then chaos.

The forest roared.

Branches snapped like bones and a gust of wind exploded outward. Kael had to raise his arm over his face to block the wind from hitting his face.

The boys screamed, stumbling back. Dorian tried to act like the noble he was, and drew a wand, but it sparked uselessly in his shaking hand. “No…!” he whispered.

A second blur; silent, swift, rushed past them. There was no time to block the wind this time around, but shockingly, the wind flew past Kael as if he wasn’t even there.

Joren yelped and fell as the other boys shuffled on their feet. Something snarled low and furious. Not animal and definitely not a man.

Just wrong.

“Run!” someone shrieked. As if that order had snapped them from their frozen state, they all ran.

Boots thundered in retreat, crashing through the woods in every direction, their curses fading into the trees. For the first time, Dorian and his gang were the ones doing the running, not him.

Silence fell again.

Kael lay there, gasping. Trembling. Cold. He couldn’t move his entire body yet, so he turned his head slowly, trying to see his surroundings.

A shadow stood nearby, cloaked in mist and half-light. It didn’t speak. Didn’t move. It just watched him with golden eyes in the dark.

Kael’s heart thundered in his chest. For a second, he realized that he wasn’t scared or making any move to run away like the boys did.

And then… it was gone. No rustle. No step. As if the forest had inhaled it whole.

Kael laid still for a long time after it vanished, listening to the quiet hum of the leaves as he tried to make sense of what just happened.

His body ached, his vision throbbed, but he was alive.

Saved.

By what, he had no idea.

Not who. What.

Eventually, he forced himself up, every motion a wince. He staggered to his feet, pressing a hand to his aching and perhaps broken ribs.

Leaves rustled softly behind him as he moved. Was it back? Kael thought as he spun. But he found nothing.

Nothing… but the faint shimmer of silver dust on the wind.