The Wanderer chased Kaelen back to her room, and stood by the closed door.
He could hear her sobs behind the door, raised his hand slowly thinking if he should knock or give her some space, he decided to knock.
She didn't respond, “open Kaelen, just want to talk.” He said.
She opened the door, her face crimson red, then sat on her bed.
The Wanderer came in, “ you didn't have to step up for me, but thank you.” He opened the door then paused, “ I'm sorry if what I said the other day led to this, wasn't my intention.”
“ Tharos wasn't always like this.” She said as the Wanderer was leaving.
“ The war… it split Lythra.” The Wanderer stepped back in, “ war?” he said.
Kaelen adjusted her robe, staring down. “A few years ago, a nearby city attacked us.
They destroyed most of our neighboring villages under our protection, ruthless people that didn't spare anyone, even the crops.”
She looked at him bitterly, “ they had magic…”
The Wanderer paused, absorbing the information, walking back and forth. “So Tharos would let people die to preserve his precious Qi, and you agree ?”
Kaelen looked angry by his comment, pushed him out of the door slowly, “ Enough talking for now, I need to get some rest.”
Another morning air felt much like any other as the Wanderer moved through the motions of his daily chores.
"You care for the lavender more than the others," a voice came from behind.
The Wanderer turned toward the gardener. It was the first time anyone had spoken to him in weeks. "They are my friends," he replied.
The gardener leaned forward. "I’ve noticed the monks avoided you.
Even Kaelen told me to keep my distance. What is it? Are you carrying a plague or something?"
The Wanderer turned back to the damp soil, his fingers lingering on the earth he was adjusting. "Maybe I am," he murmured, his voice barely audible.
The gardener stepped closer and rested a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sure you'll be fine."
The Wanderer flinched at the unexpected warmth. He looked at the gardener’s frail frame, sensing no trace of Qi presence.
For a moment, his eyes grew wet, a sudden sting of tears blurring his vision.
He quickly shook off the self-loathing and stood up, breaking the contact. "I’ll head to the market," he said, clearing his throat. "We’re missing some fertilizers."
The man gave a slow nod and went back to his work, leaving the Wanderer to the silence of the garden.
He moved through the market carrying heavy sacks of fertilizers on his shoulder. Behind him, he could feel Kaelen’s presence, her eyes never leaving the back of his neck.
The normal haggling of the merchants was interrupted by the sharp crack of displacing air.
In the center of the market, a Viridian monk and an assassin in a soot-colored cowl were locked in a fight. The monk was a tempest of motion, his white robes snapping as he channeled Qi into his palms. Each strike sent out concentrated blasts of translucent energy that turned market stalls into splintered wood and scattered fruit.
The assassin, however, moved like smoke.
Every time the monk lunged with a glowing palm, the hooded figure vanished in a blur of displaced shadows, reappearing inches away to deliver a counter-strike. The assassin’s hidden silver blades aimed for the joints and the veins.
The monk’s movements began to grow heavy. Red streaks of blood bloomed across his white sleeves and thighs where the hidden blades had found their mark. He roared, gathering a massive surge of Qi into a desperate, spherical burst to clear the area, but the assassin had already anticipated the move.
The hooded figure dropped low, sliding beneath the arc of the blast. As the monk overextended, his energy spent and his guard wide open, the assassin lunged upward. His blade whistled through the air, severing the tendons in the monk's lead leg.
The monk collapsed to one knee, his Qi flickering. The assassin hovered over him, driving his blade towards the monk’s throat.
The Wanderer’s hand snapped out, his fingers locking around the assassin’s wrist.
"That’s enough," the Wanderer said. "He can't continue."
In a blur of motion, the assassin wrenched his arm free, the tip of his blade now hovering at the Wanderer’s neck.
"Who are you to stop a sacred duel?" he hissed, pressing his blade, drawing a drop of red.
The wounded monk, clutching his severed leg, gasped in horror. "What have you done, you idiot?"
Kaelen arrived, crossing her safe distance from the Wanderer, her face pale. "Wanderer, come. We need to leave. Now!"
The assassin’s eyes shifted to her, then back to the Wanderer. "So, he belongs to the Viridian temple?" A cold smile touched his voice. He lowered his blade. "You can leave. We will be paying your temple a visit shortly."
They didn't wait. Kaelen gestured to the Wanderer to follow, racing back toward the living walls of the temple.
They burst into the central hall, finding Tharos amidst his scrolls.
"He stopped a sacred duel!" Kaelen cried out, her breath hitching.
Tharos’s face went from scholarly calm to a mask of ancient fury. He loomed over the Wanderer. "You damn pilgrim of ruin. Nothing good ever came from you."
"You would just let a monk die?" the Wanderer shot back, his own anger rising. "Why is life so worthless in this city? The Fang is out there slaughtering people and you cowards do nothing!"
"It was his fate to die, then!" Tharos roared. "You cannot have mercy without the existence of brutality! You have no idea what we have sacrificed to keep this damned city alive, outsider."
Their shouting was cut short by the sound of the temple's outer gates being breached.
They stepped out into the courtyard to find a group of the Fang standing within the walls, but these weren't the drunken thugs from the market. They were dressed in black cowls, the air around them distorted by honed Qi.
"Come out, Tharos!" their leader shouted. "You know what your disciple has done!"
Tharos stepped forward, flanked by the Wanderer and Kaelen. "What do you want, Rohan?"
The leader, Rohan, pulled back his hood to reveal a face mapped with scars. "The price for disrupting a sacred duel. Your territory... your temple."
Tharos pointed sharply at the Wanderer. "This man is an outsider! He is not one of my monks. You cannot demand our sanctuary for the actions of a stranger."
Rohan’s laughed. "Trying to wheedle your way out of this? He lives here, he eats here. Monk or not, he is your responsibility."
"We will never accept this injustice!" Tharos replied, his hand tightening in a fist.
"War it is, then," Rohan said, turning to leave.
"You would fight and kill your own brothers?" Tharos called out, his voice trembling.
Rohan stopped, looking back over his shoulder with a look of pure loathing. "That old song again? We left this temple to die, following your orders that almost wiped Lythra from the map.
It was I who kept us standing while you hid behind your prayers."
He pointed his blade at the Elder. "You either give up your temple, or prepare for my blade... Master.”