It's wrong."
Kael didn't need to say it loud for it to carry. The mountainside did that annoying thing where sound either died in the wind or snapped back at you as an echo, never in between.
The morning air was thin and sharp, cold enough to bite the sweat on his skin, warm enough near his abdomen that the heat of Ki felt like a second climate living under his ribs.
He stared at the rock in his hand like it had personally offended him.
Then he cursed as he gripped the rock this time, and crushed it to dust.
Not cracked. Not fractured. Dust. His fingers tightened and the stone gave up in a breathless crumble, grit sifting through his knuckles and down his palm like sand.
It wasn't even satisfying anymore, he'd been doing that kind of thing long enough that raw destruction had lost its novelty. The only thing it did now was remind him of the gap between breaking and doing it correctly.
