Chapter 8: Brennan Graves

Chapter 8: Brennan Graves

"You’re the one who broke my cousin’s wrist."

It wasn’t a question.

The voice was deep.

The kind of voice that didn’t need to be loud because everyone was already listening.

Brennan Graves. Fennick’s older cousin.

Rhain met his gaze. Steady. Unhurried.

"I did," Rhain said.

Simple. Direct.

No elaboration. No justification

The mess hall had become a vacuum.

Sixty outer disciples were watching with the desperate, greedy attention of people witnessing something that might become very violent very quickly.

Even the serving boy, Callum, had stopped ladling congee.

The ambient Essence in the hall shifted.

It was subtle. Most of the outer disciples wouldn’t have felt it.

But Rhain and Seris did.

Seris had gone still across the table. The pressure was unbearable for her Essence Awakening Level 2 body.

Brennan placed both hands on the edge of the table, and leaned forward.

The wood groaned under his grip.

"Fennick is an idiot," he said flatly. "He’s arrogant, he’s reckless, and half the time I want to break his legs myself."

A pause.

"But he’s family."

Rhain didn’t respond.

"I’m going to make this simple," Brennan said, straightening up.

"Apologize to Fennick," Brennan said. "Publicly. Today. Go to his quarters, bow, and tell him you’re sorry for your disrespect."

A pause.

"Do that, and this ends here."

"No."

Rhain leaned against his chair and spoke with a flat tone.

Once again, it was just one word, without any further explanation.

But this one word carried more weight than a thousand lines.

Several disciples felt their backs soaked with cold sweat.

Rhain has gone crazy.

Brennan blinked.

"What?"

He was genuinely surprised. The answer was beyond his expectations.

"I said no," Rhain repeated. He folded his arms across his chest. "I broke his wrist. He’s lucky that’s all I broke."

A pause.

"There will be no apology."

Brennan’s eyes narrowed.

He exhaled through his nose and then stepped back from the table.

"I know where your courage is coming from."

"The sect has its rules," Brennan said. "Inner disciples aren’t allowed to bully outer disciples"

"But the rules can only protect you within the sect’s boundary. Once you leave the sect, everything depends on fate."

It was a naked threat.

Seris gripped Rhain’s hand. She was feeling very nervous.

She was afraid that Rhain will again say something to enrage Brennan.

Rhain gently patted Seris’s hand and calmly met Brennan’s threatening gaze.

"If you have nothing else to say, then just leave already. You are wasting my time."

Brennan didn’t say anything more. He just gave one last glance to Rhain before turning around.

But he stopped after walking three steps.

"I hope you will never leave the sect. I’m a very patient man, Rhain."

Then he walked out of the mess hall.

Nobody moved for a while.

Somewhere near the back, someone exhaled and then stood up to leave.

One by one, several disciples left the mess hall as if running away from a plague.

Seris let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Her hands were trembling beneath the table.

"That," she said, "was incredibly stupid."

"Probably."

"Are you... not worried?"

Rhain looked at her for a long time.

"What?" Seris asked nervously.

"I’m finished my breakfast."

Seris stared at him for a while.

Then, despite everything — a small, incredulous breath of laughter escaped her.

She shook her head and left with him.

........

"You’re not taking this seriously. He threatened to kill you outside the sect." Her hands were clenched at her sides.

"I’m taking it very seriously," Rhain said. "Which is why I’m not panicking."

Seris stared at him.

There it was again — that dissonance.

"We have our monthly sparring in three days. He will definitely do something to harm you."

"I know."

She wasn’t wrong.

The monthly sparring was held on the first day of month in the battle arena.

Matches were assigned by the presiding elder, ostensibly at random, but in practice, favoritism and backroom arrangements were rampant.

Brennan can easily arrange someone to to be matched against him.

It’s allowed to beat someone to half death and call it training.

The elders won’t intervene.

Battle Arena is the only place where violence is sanctioned.

It was also one of the four sign-in locations on his System map.

"Don’t participate," Seris said abruptly.

"It’s mandatory." He said.

"There are exceptions," she continued, "If a disciple is unwell or recovering from injury, they can petition the presiding elder for exemption."

She stopped walking and turned to face him fully, her silver-white hair catching the pale light.

"You’re strong now — stronger than I understand. But you’ve had your power for two days. Two days. Brennan has been cultivating for years."

"Please. Just this once. Skip the sparring. You can fight him on your terms later, when the gap isn’t so wide."

Rhain looked at her worried expression. He raised his hand to brush away the stray strands of silver-white hair the morning breeze had swept across her face.

"Trust me," Rhain said.

Seris’s cheeks flushed. The color bloomed across her pale skin like ink dropped in water — impossible to miss, impossible to hide.

She looked away. Then looked back. Then looked away again.

"You..." she started.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You really won’t skip the sparring?" she asked, her voice smaller now. The flush hadn’t faded.

"No."

She exhaled. Her shoulders rose and fell with it.

"Then be careful," she said quietly.

It was the same thing she always said. The same two words she had spoken to the old Rhain, and he always felt the same quiet care.

"I will." He nodded.

Seris held his gaze for a heartbeat longer than necessary. Then she turned and walked away, her blue robes disappearing around the corner of the corridor.

Rhain watched her go.

Then he turned and began walking back toward the outer disciple quarters.

As he rounded the corner past the forge, the herb garden came into view.

He slowed.

The garden occupied a rectangular plot on the second terrace — roughly forty paces long and twenty wide, nestled against the natural rock face of the hillside where the ambient Essence was marginally denser than the surrounding compound.

It was the sect’s single most valuable asset aside from the library.

And they guarded it like it.

At the single gate, two inner disciples stood watch.

It was heavily fenced.

A heavy wooden fence, reinforced with iron bands.

The blue dot on his System map pulsed faintly in his peripheral vision.

The sign-in node was inside the fence.

Rhain filed the information away and kept walking, his pace unhurried, his expression blank.

He can’t do it for now.

But soon.