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He did not tell them he had already frayed into the blightwolf’s pack.

Kaelen closed his eyes. For the first time, he frayed into nothing—into the absence left by the Sundering. It was like falling up a well. He felt every animal in the forest flicker: deer stopping mid-chew, voles freezing underground, the blightwolf lifting her head in the dark. animrco

Kaelen woke blind in one eye, deaf in one ear, and smiling. He did not tell them he had already

“I can wake him,” Kaelen whispered, blood running from his ears. “Or I can fray into the mountain and become the new Sundering.” It was like falling up a well

He never frayed again. But once a month, a raven lands on his windowsill, and he nods at it—not with envy, but with the quiet respect of one who has seen the world through another’s eyes and still chosen to be human.

It happened first when he was seven, chasing a lost goat into the thorn-woods. Exhausted and lost, Kaelen had lain down beneath an old ironwood tree, and a raven had landed on his chest. Not on him— in him. The bird’s black gaze slid behind his eyes like a key turning a lock.

He became good. Too good.