In the cradle of the Tamir Mountains, where clouds walked barefoot across peaks and morning winds tasted like cedar and salt, there was a village no map dared name. It was not hidden by magic, nor veiled in mist. It simply breathed so quietly that the world forgot to look.
Here, in a hut woven from black fig bark and threadbare prayer mats, a boy awakened.
No name.
No memory.
Only the sound of his own breath—and the scent of smoke-laced honey drifting in from the hearth.
The boy's body ached like something recently returned from death. His eyes opened slowly, pupils shrinking against shafts of gold that pierced the slatted roof above him. He lay on a straw mat. Above him, herbs hung upside down in neat bundles: bidara, kayu manis, sirih, and akar kuning. Each tied with a red string and marked with charcoal ink—sigils he did not yet understand.
A voice, low and rumbling, stirred behind a beaded curtain.
"You have the breath of one who fell but chose to rise."
A figure emerged—bent-backed, wrapped in white cotton robes tinged with saffron at the sleeves. His eyes were clouded with milk-blindness, yet they missed nothing.
This was Master Faatir, the village healer.
Or perhaps, something more.
The boy sat up, swaying like a reed in wind.
"Where am I?"
"Between what you were," the old man said, "and what you must become."
He placed a cup before the boy—warm, carved from bone, filled with something bitter and sweet.
"Drink. It will calm the scars you cannot see."
The boy drank. The warmth slid down like melted starlight, spreading into his ribs, his spine, his heart.
And then came the whispers.
A thousand languages spoken all at once. Some sounded like songs. Others like screams. But one rose clear above the rest—a single line, repeated over and over, like a chant in reverse:
"The book chooses the broken."
The boy blinked. In his lap, the cup was gone. In its place was a scroll.
It pulsed faintly beneath his fingertips. Not with heat, but with memory.
A name etched itself into his mind, unbidden: Zayan.
Not his birth name.
But perhaps… his true one.
Master Faatir spoke again, slower now.
"The Book of Breath and Bone has opened to you. That means your soul bears a split."
"What does that mean?" Zayan asked.
"You are no longer just one. But many. A soul scattered, waiting to be healed."
And thus, the old master began to teach him—not with words alone, but with rhythm.
Each lesson began with breath.
Each chant with silence.
Each seal with surrender.
They did not study battle. They studied balance.
Zayan learned to hear herbs, not just name them.
He learned to see meridians in the air, glowing faintly along spines and palms.
He learned of energy—ruh, chi, prana, all of them rivers of the same Source.
He learned to touch pain without touching skin.
To heal without herbs.
To protect with prayer.
Master Faatir would say, as he traced a sigil into sand with his thumb:
"The sickness of the body is a shadow. But the sickness of the soul... that is the root. You must learn to see both."
But not all lessons came from the old master.
One night, the wind brought visitors.
Figures cloaked in white, faceless beneath hoods. They spoke no words, but burned symbols into the earth. They were searching for something.
Or someone.
Zayan felt it before they knocked.
Felt the scroll in his room heat like fire.
Felt the rhythm of the air change—pulse quicken—like the world was bracing for a wound.
Master Faatir stood at the door, unmoving.
"You are not ready," he whispered.
"But neither are they."
With a whisper of breath, he struck the earth.
And the house disappeared.
Not burned. Not broken.
Simply forgotten.
Zayan awoke the next morning beside the roots of a cedar tree, the scroll still glowing at his side.
Master Faatir was gone.
Only his staff remained—etched with the same sigil found in the scroll:
A circle of breath, open at the top.