She pulled the tunic over her head. It hung past her knees, but she rolled up the sleeves and tied the loose fabric at her waist with a piece of rope that had been left beside the clothes. The trousers were too long as well, so she folded the cuffs until her feet could move without tripping.
Then she stood up. Her legs were still weak, but they held.
She walked to the door and stepped out into the main room.
The place was small. One large room with a kitchen area in the corner, a wooden table in the center, and a sleeping mat rolled up against the wall. The ceiling was low, the beams dark with age. A fire burned in a stone hearth, and above it hung a pot that smelled of everything her empty stomach had been craving.
It was not a big house. But it could fit three or four people easily. Maybe more, if they squeezed.
He was alone. Gaon stood at the hearth with his back to her, stirring the pot with a wooden spoon.
"Take a seat," he said. His voice was calm, not looking back. "It'll be ready soon."
She stood there for a moment, unsure. Then she walked to the table and sat down on the wooden bench. Her hands rested on her knees. Her fingers curled into the unfamiliar fabric of the clean trousers.
She watched him cook. The fire crackled. The steam rose. And for the first time in eleven years, she waited for a meal that no one would take away from her.
He set the wooden spoon across the top of the pot and turned around. His face was young but not soft sharp cheekbones, tired eyes, the kind of look that came from spending too much time alone in the mountains.
"My name is Yeon Gaon, I'm fifteen. I'm not a cultivator. I've never been to an academy. I live here alone because I'm teaching myself."
He pulled the pot off the fire and carried it to the table, setting it on a thick cloth.
"That's who I am. Now you."
She stared at the pot. Steam rose from the porridge inside—rice and wild vegetables and small chunks of something that smelled like rabbit.
"I..." Her voice came out thin, barely a thread. She swallowed. "I don't know who I am."
Gaon tilted his head.
"The guards at the Dig," she said, her eyes dropping to the table. "They never called me anything. When they talked about me, they said 'that bitch's daughter.' My mother... she never told me my name. Or maybe she did, and I forgot. I was too young."
She pulled her hands into her sleeves.
"I don't have a name. I don't have anything."
Gaon was quiet for a moment. Then he reached for a bowl, filled it with porridge, and placed it in front of her.
"Eat first," he said. "Names can come later."
Gaon sat down across from her and watched her eat. She ate slowly at first, then faster, as if her body remembered hunger before her mind did. He waited until the bowl was half empty before he spoke.
He had been thinking while cooking. What should he do with her? Take her to Hwagok? The village would ask questions. Someone might send her back. He could try to adopt her but he was fifteen, living alone in a mountain hut, with no money and no family to speak of. The village elders would never allow it. And even if they did, what kind of life could he give her?
Then another thought came. What about making her a student?
He had no qi. He could not cultivate. But he had read. Years of reading. Manuals, theories, diagrams, the works of long-dead masters. He understood how qi moved, how the dantian opened, how energy flowed through the meridians. He understood it better than most people who actually had the power. He just could not do it himself.
But she might.
She was younger than him, If she had any potential at all, he could teach her. Not the physical training he was weak there too but the theory. The foundation. The things that every cultivator needed to know before they ever threw a punch.
She finished the bowl and set it down. Her eyes were still red, but she looked less like a ghost now. More like a child.
Gaon leaned forward.
"Do you want to be strong?" he asked. "Strong enough that no one can ever take you back to a place like that. Strong enough that you never have to run again."
She looked at him. Her lips parted.
"No one will catch you," he said. "Not ever. But you have to want it. And you have to work for it. I can't give you power. But I can teach you how to find it yourself."
The room was quiet except for the crackle of the dying fire.
Her small hands clenched the edge of the bowl.
"Yes," she whispered. "I want that. I don't want to be caught ever again."
Gaon nodded.
"Then you stay here. You learn from me. And we figure out your name later."
He stood up and stretched his back.
"For now, you rest. But before that—"
He raised his palm toward her face.
She flinched. Her eyes squeezed shut. Her body tensed, expecting pain, expecting a blow, expecting the back of a hand or the grip of fingers around her throat.
But the pain never came.
The warmth returned. The soft glow drifted from his palm and spread across her cheeks, her forehead, her temples. Small cuts she did not even know she had from branches, from rocks, from the rough hands of guards closed and faded. The dark circles under her eyes lightened. The tight knot of exhaustion behind her skull loosened.
She opened her eyes.
Gaon lowered his hand.
"There," he said. "Now go rest. The bed is yours. I'll sleep on the mat."
He turned back to the hearth to clean the pot.
She got into the bed and pulled the blanket up to her chin. The mattress was soft beneath her back. The pillow smelled like grass drying in the sun. She turned her head toward the window and saw the sky through the small frame blue, open, endless.
Thank you, she thought. Thank you for leading me to him.
The voice did not answer. But she felt it there, resting at the back of her mind like a hand on her shoulder. Warm. Present. Watching over her.
She closed her eyes.
***
Outside, Gaon picked up the axe.
The woodpile stood against the eastern wall of the hut logs of various sizes, some split, some still whole. He set a thick piece on the chopping block and swung. The blade bit into the grain. He pulled it free and swung again. The log cracked in half.
Set pieces aside and reached for another log.
One bed for himself. One bed for her. He had enough straw left for a second mattress, but he needed more planks. The wood he was splitting now— he straight pieces, the ones without knots those he could use. The rest would burn.
He swung again.
Stak!
She needs a name, he thought. She needs training. She needs to eat more than porridge and wild vegetables.
He stopped swinging for a moment and looked at the pile of straight planks growing at his feet.
One thing at a time.
He picked up another log and kept working.
Looked at the pile it was not enough the straight planks were too few. The rest were cracked or knotted or split at wrong angles.
He turned to the tree line.
There was a young birch at the edge of the clearing straight trunk, no low branches, just the right thickness. He walked toward it, rolled his shoulders, and let the power come.
Not the full Titan not even the hybrid just enough. Two times stronger than a normal boy his age. His muscles tensed beneath his clothes. His fists felt heavier.
He drew his arm back and punched the trunk.
The wood cracked. The tree groaned but did not fall yet.
Jumped, his fist came down from above, hitting the same spot. The trunk split lengthwise, clean down the middle, the two halves falling outward like opened doors.
He landed on his feet, breathing hard but not exhausted.
Then he picked up the halves one under each arm and carried them back to the woodpile.
To Be Continued.