The fire crackled softly in the hearth, casting a warm glow across the wooden walls of the small cabin. Outside, the snow continued to fall, its quiet persistence contrasting with the echoes of the hunt still swirling in Celeste's mind. She lay on her bed, exhaustion tugging at her, but sleep remained distant.
Her body ached from the battle. The wolf's claws had torn through her skin, leaving her side bandaged and sore. Yet it wasn't the pain that kept her awake. It was the weight of something deeper the knowledge of who she was becoming.
She exhaled, her breath slow and deliberate, as Kite had taught her. Composure. Control.
Her mind drifted back to the conversation she'd had with him after one of their first training sessions, back when he'd revealed the truth about what she really was and why her path was unlike any other swordsman.
"There is something you need to understand," Kite had said one evening, sitting by the same fire that now warmed her. His voice had been quiet, but the intensity behind his words had left no room for misunderstanding. "You're not like the others."
Celeste had frowned, confused. She'd always known she was different her failure in magic, her struggles with things that came easily to others. But the way Kite spoke made it sound as if her differences were far more profound than she'd ever imagined.
"You have what few possess," he continued. "A rare gift. Your mana is uncorrupted, untied to any element. What flows through you is pure a force known as Sanctum."
Celeste had stared at him, the word foreign on her tongue. "Sanctum?"
"Pure mana," Kite had explained. "The energy that once powered an ancient order, a lost art. The Saint Swordsmen wielded it, warriors from the days of the Luminous Oath." His eyes had flickered in the firelight, his face unreadable. "An order that is long gone. Extinguished in the fires of a war that few still remember. But their legacy lives on in you, And in both of us."
His words had sent a chill down her spine, and not just from the story of a long-forgotten war. The idea that she carried something so rare so powerful inside her had left her uneasy. So its like a plot in many fantasy genre novels I read in my past life.
"Why me?" she had asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Sanctum is not something you choose," Kite had said, his tone somber. "It chooses you. There are those born with a natural connection to it, and from the moment I met you, I knew you were one of them. That's why you struggled with magic your mana can't be blended with elements like fire, earth, or wind or even water. It's too pure for that. Too strong. It can't be corrupted."
He had paused, his gaze intense, as though weighing every word carefully.
"That's why I took you in. Why I began training you. But this power makes you... vulnerable."
"Vulnerable?" Celeste had repeated, confused. How could something that was supposed to be so powerful make her vulnerable?
"Because you're rare," Kite had said quietly. "And in this world, anything rare is hunted. If people knew what you carried inside you the gift of Sanctum they would try to use you. Or worse, they would destroy you."
His words had settled like a weight in her chest, the gravity of what he was saying sinking in. That's the reason master kite is so recluse, and at to these point he's not telling me everything about these saint swordsmanship.