CHAPTER 107: CHAPTER 107: THE ECHO OF LIFE

Arden pressed his palms together, letting his life energy hum between them.

He tried to steady it, shaping the pulse into something that would last, then opened his hands slowly. The shimmer pushed outward, brushing the edges of the hall before fizzling away. He chuckled under his breath.

"Not there yet," he said, more to himself than anyone else.

He didn’t notice the lord watching him from across the hall, arms folded, face calm but eyes sharp.

The man said nothing, though his gaze followed every motion.

Arden’s way of working was not like other young hunters. He didn’t repeat drills for the sake of form. He experimented. He tested. He failed and laughed at his own failure, only to try again a different way.

To the lord, it felt less like watching a boy learn and more like watching a man recall what he once knew.

Nyra and Rael just finished their spar, and they both collapsed to the floor, panting hard.

Rael wiped sweat from his brow and muttered, "He really doesn’t let up."

Nyra still smiled even through her exhaustion. "Good."

Arden walked over and tossed them a cloth. "Try not to fall apart before tomorrow. He looks like the type to keep pushing even if you crawl in here half-dead."

Her cheeks reddened but her eyes stayed firm. "Then I’ll crawl."

The lord’s lips curved the faintest bit before he pulled his outer robes back on. "You’ve both done well. Keep refining. We’ll go again tomorrow." His voice was steady, measured, and then he left the hall, his footsteps echoing through the stone.

Silence lingered until Arden stretched his arms overhead. "Well, I’d say that’s progress. One of you’s learning to aim your spells, the other one’s learning not to fry himself with his own lightning. Not bad."

Rael groaned and tossed a pebble at him. "You’re impossible."

Nyra only smiled, tired but proud.

Arden grinned, softer now. "Keep this up, and we’ll be more than ready for what’s coming."

The next few days slipped into a rhythm.

Training at dawn, lectures from the lord, sparring, corrections, exhaustion.

Rael’s lightning grew sharper, less wild. Nyra’s balance between wind and ice improved with every correction.

The lord praised her growth openly, and Arden noticed how her shoulders straightened every time her father acknowledged her.

But Arden himself kept to his own corner whenever possible. He trained with them, seldomly, but when the sparring ended, he always returned to his experiments.

Zephyra often lay by the wall, half-curled with her eyes half-shut.

She watched Arden more than she let on, her low rumbling growls sometimes sounding like questions. Arden would only give her a crooked smile.

"Don’t worry, girl. I’ll figure it out before I blow myself up."

Her tail thumped against the floor, though she didn’t speak further.

One evening, after Rael and Nyra had gone back to rest, Arden stayed behind.

The hall was quiet, the torches flickering, the air heavy with the scent of sweat and old stone. He closed his eyes and murmured to himself.

"If life energy is more than just fuel, then it should carry presence. If I can let it breathe outside me without breaking apart, maybe I can make it linger. Like an echo."

He thought of the two states. Pulse, what he used to strengthen his body. Echo, what brushed the world outside him, always slipping away. He needed balance or he’d burn out before it even formed.

He pressed his palms together, life energy swirling hot between them, then released it as a thin stream. It flickered out like mist. Arden sighed. "Too much push. Like squeezing water through my fingers."

Next, he tried a full burst, flooding the hall with raw pulse until his skin prickled and the air shimmered. His knees wobbled and he nearly collapsed, gasping. "Alright. Definitely not that. I’m not trying to drain myself."

He sat for a while, letting his breath even out.

Zephyra raised her head and gave a short growl, something like scolding.

"Yeah, yeah," Arden muttered, running a hand through his hair. "Lesson learned. Echo’s not a flood. It’s a whisper."

The next night, he tried again with a stone in front of him. He pressed his pulse into it. The stone glowed faintly, held the light for a moment, then fizzled out. Arden tilted his head.

"Better. An anchor gives it shape. But too narrow. I need it wide."

The night after that, he changed his method. Instead of pouring energy all at once, he timed it with his breathing. Inhale, pulse inward. Exhale, let it drift outward. Slowly, carefully. He felt the edges of his energy touch the walls, faint and shaky but there. When it faded, he laughed out loud.

"That’s it. That’s the rhythm. Not a shout, but a breath."

On the fifth night, he brought it all together. He anchored the pulse lightly on the stone near him, then let his breathing carry it outward. His energy spread in a thin veil, faint but steady, covering a space of a few meters around him. He stilled, waiting, listening.

The veil shivered when Zephyra shifted her paw. Arden’s eyes snapped open. He hadn’t seen her move, but he felt it ripple through the veil like a wave. His grin widened.

"That’s it. A life echo."

The veil was fragile, flickering at the edges, but it held long enough for him to test again. When he moved his hand, the air carried it back to him. It wasn’t force, it wasn’t defense, but awareness. A whisper of the world around him.

Zephyra finally spoke feeling the change in her body from the veil coming from Arden, her voice low, rough. "Strange trick... but useful."

Arden chuckled. "It’s more than a trick. If I can hold this long enough, refine it, I’ll always know what’s around me before they even move. Not perfect, but it’s a start."

She tilted her head, ears flicking, but said no more.

A/N:

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