For years, Ryen had been content to watch. Watching was easy. It required nothing of him but patience, silence, and an understanding that most people never reached. He had seen men rise to greatness, watched them carve their names into the world—only to witness them crumble under the weight of their own ambition.
Veyne had been one of them.
She had played with a precision that made people believe she was untouchable. The underground feared her, envied her, revered her. And then, they destroyed her. She hadn't lost because she lacked skill. She had lost because she thought she could stay at the peak forever.
But even peaks erode.
It had been four years since that final game. Four years since Ryen had stood in that cold courtyard, where the weight of the past had pressed against his thoughts like a slow, suffocating force. The village had become a prison, not because it held him back, but because it offered nothing new.
He had spent years watching, but now he could feel it—something shifting in him.
It wasn't a desire for power. It wasn't even curiosity.
It was discomfort.
Watching had always been enough. But now, for the first time, it wasn't.
At first, he thought it was just an itch in his mind, a passing restlessness. But restlessness fades. This did not. It stayed with him, lingering in the space between his thoughts. He had spent his whole life observing others, understanding them in ways they never realized. He had always known that people moved toward things—ambition, greed, revenge, love. They reached and clawed for something, driven by forces they couldn't fully comprehend.
But Ryen had never moved toward anything.
He had been still, like a shadow against the wall, like the air in a quiet room.
So why did it feel like something was pulling at him now?
The world outside called to him in a way he didn't understand. The murmurs of travelers passing through the village spoke of warriors who moved unlike any before, fighters who seemed to break free from the limits of their own flesh. At first, it was nothing but noise, just another story of men chasing what they could never reach. But as the tales grew, as the descriptions became more detailed, he found himself listening.
Not just listening.
Noticing.
They spoke of men who didn't just train their bodies but changed them, as if they had learned to move outside of struggle itself. Not with force, not with effort, but with something deeper.
It was in the way they fought, the way they reacted—instantaneous, unburdened. People described it as if it were instinct, but Ryen had seen instinct before. Instinct was reactive. These warriors were deliberate.
That was what unsettled him.
Because he had only ever seen one person move like that before.
And she had lost.
So what made them different?
The village had no answer. Staying wouldn't give him one.
So he left.
The road stretched far, but Ryen had no destination. He only moved forward, guided by a direction that felt more like a question than a goal. The Kingdom of Hymns lay beyond the hills, a place known not for its wealth, nor its rulers, but for its warriors. It was said they could hear the rhythm of battle itself, that they moved as if they were in tune with something greater.
It was a story, like all others.
But stories had a way of pulling people toward them.
And then, he saw him.
Not just a warrior. Not just a soldier.
A man who resonated.
Ryen stood at the edge of the training grounds, unseen in the shifting crowd, and he watched. The mighty warrior moved like a current through the battlefield, his every motion seamless. It wasn't like the underground, where precision came from control. It wasn't like Veyne, whose mastery had come from calculation and restraint.
This was different.
Every step, every strike—it was as if his body wasn't just reacting but flowing into the next movement, into the next decision. No hesitation. No strain. Just pure, effortless motion.
Ryen had spent his whole life watching people struggle against their own limitations. He had seen the way desperation crept into their bones, the way effort twisted their faces into grimaces of exertion.
This man… he wasn't struggling.
He wasn't fighting against his limits.
He simply was.
Ryen had no words for it. He had no understanding of it.
And for the first time, he felt something foreign settle into him.
It wasn't envy. It wasn't admiration.
It was recognition.
As if, in some unspoken way, the world was trying to tell him something.
And then, the warrior hesitated.
It was so small, so fleeting, that no one else noticed. His movements never faltered, his strikes never slowed. But Ryen saw it—felt it. A moment where something invisible shifted.
And in that moment, the man turned his head.
Not fully. Not toward him.
But just enough.
Just enough for Ryen to know.
He had been noticed.
Not just as a spectator. Not just as another passerby.
Something deeper.
Something he wasn't sure he wanted to understand.
He left before the feeling could settle in. Before he could begin to question what it meant.
But the discomfort stayed with him.
For all his life, he had believed he was separate from those who sought power. He had watched them from afar, knowing he was not like them.
But if that were true…
Then why had the warrior looked at him like that?
Why did he feel, for the first time, that he wasn't just watching anymore?
And why did it feel like something inside him had already taken a step forward—before he had even decided to move?
Ryen recalled what Hagan told him " Others don't like to be seen"
That moment he felt something. He never wanted to be seen. Then he took a step back and decided to move on as he walked away.