The sterile chamber smelled faintly of iron and disinfectant, a reminder of the cost that came before. Humanity had gambled once with an incomplete version of Phoenix Ash—creating men and women who were stronger, faster, but never more than echoes of what they might have been. Now, the true serum lay perfected, waiting to carve history into eight young bodies.
Zander Kael stood with the others inside the great hall of glass and steel. Eight oval pods lined the circular chamber, their interiors faintly luminous. Around them, officers in dark uniforms and scientists in pale coats moved like restless shadows. Every gesture carried urgency; every look whispered that the fate of a species perched on a knife's edge.
Seven years. That was all humanity had until the next South King Tournament. Seven years to rise, or be devoured.
Zander's gaze drifted across the chamber. He saw Lyra, slender and pale, clutching her fists as if to hold her fear inside her chest. Darius, tall for his age, rolled his shoulders with bravado that fooled no one. And then there was Joren Vale—his rival, his foil—standing at ease, as if he were already accustomed to being watched, already a king in waiting. The faint curl of Joren's lips wasn't arrogance alone; it was certainty.
Zander clenched his jaw. This isn't about who looks strongest now. It's about who survives what comes next.
A man in a decorated uniform—General Rykov, the military overseer—stepped forward. His voice carried the weight of command, each word striking the chamber like iron.
"You eight are no longer children. You are humanity's wager. Today, Project 24XY begins. You will not come back as you were. You will endure pain greater than death, and only those with the will to grasp fire itself will emerge."
The scientists sealed the pods one by one. Metal clasps hissed shut, and cold glass dimmed the world outside. Zander's pod sealed around him, and silence pressed in. A faint vibration hummed through the chamber as machinery came alive.
Then the needle struck.
White-hot pain lanced the back of his neck. His breath hitched, teeth sinking hard into the mouthpiece they had given him. Liquid fire seeped into his veins, spreading outward with merciless slowness. His muscles trembled, skin crawling as though every cell screamed in protest.
The chamber filled with greenish fluid, thick and luminous, submerging him to the chest, then higher. Strange lights scanned across his body in patterns he could not comprehend. Somewhere beyond the glass, he could sense—not see—doctors rushing, voices raised, numbers recited in clipped tones.
Then came the fire.
It began in his chest, a smoldering ember beneath the sternum, faint and deceptively gentle. Then, with sudden violence, it erupted. A wave of searing heat spread outward in perfect symmetry, racing along arteries and veins, threading into muscles, searing bone. His heart thundered against his ribs, every beat pumping flame into new channels. The sensation was unbearable, yet it was more than pain. It was creation masquerading as destruction.
Zander gasped against the mouthpiece, every nerve alight. He saw sparks cascade across the inside of the pod, though no sparks were there. He heard the pounding of other hearts—Lyra's, Darius's, Joren's—all beating erratic rhythms, a chorus of terrified youth. Somehow, impossibly, he knew who belonged to which beat.
Why can I hear this? Why can I feel them?
The fire grew. His skin prickled as pores opened unnaturally, drinking in the luminous fluid that surrounded him. His body convulsed as if torn apart and rebuilt with each second. Bones cracked, only to knit again stronger. Blood vessels widened, threads of new power weaving through them. His mind split between agony and a strange clarity that terrified him even more.
On the far side of the chamber, Joren's pod flared with light so bright the scientists shielded their eyes. A voice shouted: "Stabilize his levels! His energy output is beyond predicted thresholds!" Zander's eyes burned at the brilliance. He could almost see the fire crown Joren's silhouette within the pod, as if the rival had been born for this.
Zander's vision blurred. The heat within his chest threatened to consume him whole. His instincts screamed: Let go. Sink. Pass out. But another voice rose from somewhere deeper, primal and insistent. Hold. Endure. This fire is not here to kill you. It is here to mark you.
His consciousness teetered on the edge. Then, in a single shattering instant, the chamber dissolved. He stood—or thought he stood—in an endless white void. Silence reigned here, so complete it roared in his ears. He turned, but there was no body to turn. He both was and was not himself.
And in that silence, he felt everything.
The doctors pacing in frantic arcs, their footsteps drumming against the floor. The soldiers tense at the ready, hands near weapons. The slow, painful breaths of the other seven, each one distinct, each one etched into his perception as though they were inside his skull.
He even felt the flicker of intent, like a shadow moving before it became action. It was faint, chaotic, but real. He could sense when one doctor reached for a lever even before the hand twitched. Danger, woven into time itself, whispering to him.
The realization staggered him. This isn't normal. This isn't—human.
The void collapsed. Pain swallowed him whole. The fire surged once more, this time racing through his skull like molten lightning. He screamed, the sound muffled by the mouthpiece but echoing in his mind. His body convulsed against restraints, tendons straining near to tearing.
Then darkness. Blessed, empty darkness.
He floated there, unsure whether he lived or had already been reduced to ash. Somewhere, dimly, he heard a voice cry out—Hermes, or perhaps Darius—followed by the crash of breaking glass. Then shouts, weapons firing, alarms blaring.
But Zander no longer cared. The fire within him receded to a quiet ember, pulsing faintly with every beat of his heart. It had not consumed him after all. It had claimed him.
When awareness returned, he was lying in a white room. It was impossibly still, impossibly quiet. No walls, no ceiling, no floor—only endless whiteness stretching beyond sight. His body ached as if shattered and remade. Blood lingered on his tongue, metallic and bitter.
Yet here, in this place, there was no pain. Only perception. He inhaled, though no air moved. He reached, though no limbs stretched. He simply was.
And in that stillness, Zander Kael understood one thing: The world he had known had already ended.
The fire within his chest pulsed again. The first spark of the Ashborn had been lit.