The city never truly slept.
Even at this late hour, the streets murmured with life — cars weaving through neon reflections, sirens echoing faintly in the distance. Above it all, perched atop the crumbling rooftop of his modest apartment building, Alaric sat alone.
The pendant Harold Marrow had once entrusted to him — the crescent moon wrapped in flames — rested heavily against his chest.
Tonight, it called to him louder than ever before.
The wind tugged at his jacket as he rose to his feet, the cracked concrete beneath him groaning in protest. Alaric stared out at the sprawling cityscape, feeling the weight of it all pressing down on him — the Marrows' contempt, the dangerous games of men like Mason Sterling, the whispered legacies he had only begun to understand.
And somewhere deep inside, something ancient stirred.
He closed his eyes.
The world fell away, until all he heard was the soft rhythm of his breathing, the quiet hum of the blood in his veins.
Inhale.
Hold.
Exhale.
It was instinctive — older than memory itself.
A forgotten technique buried deep within his bloodline.
As he focused, the pendant against his chest grew warm. Lines of energy, invisible to the naked eye, lit up along the meridians of his body. His muscles tightened, not with strain but with purpose.
Alaric moved, almost unconsciously.
His body slid into the first form: a series of slow, deliberate motions, each one flowing into the next with the grace of a river cutting through stone.
Movements etched into his soul by ancestors he had never known.
Movements that spoke of power not granted by the world — but claimed by those willing to bear it.
The air around him shifted.
The worn sneakers on his feet scraped against the rooftop with surprising speed and force, leaving faint scorch marks where none should exist.
The breath techniques guided his heart, sharpening his focus beyond human limitation. His senses bloomed outward — he could feel the electricity humming in the wires across the street, hear the faint footfalls of a stray cat three stories below.
Then came the vision.
It wasn't a dream, nor a hallucination.
Before him stood ghostly silhouettes — proud men and women clad in armor stitched from starlight and shadow.
The Vanes.
A thousand generations of forgotten kings, warriors, healers.
They stared at him with neither approval nor disdain.
Only expectation.
At their center stood a figure taller than the rest, his hair silver at the temples, his eyes the same silver-flecked blue that Alaric saw in the mirror each morning.
The First Vane.
When he spoke, his voice was a rumble beneath Alaric's ribs.
"Strength without arrogance. Wisdom without hesitation. Power... only when necessary."
"You are the last."
"You will be more."
The vision faded, leaving behind a sense of unbearable gravity — and something else, too:
A spark.
A fire burning just beneath Alaric's skin, demanding to be fed.
He dropped to his knees, gasping, as the flood of power rushed through him — centuries of lost knowledge surging into his soul like a tidal wave breaking a dam.
It was overwhelming.
It was terrifying.
It was beautiful.
When Alaric finally stood again, sweat dripping from his brow, his body felt different.
Lighter.
Stronger.
Every step crackled faintly against the rooftop as he paced, testing the change.
He threw a slow, deliberate punch into the empty night air — and the shockwave it created rattled the nearest streetlight below.
Alaric stared at his own hand, flexing the fingers slowly.
He wasn't just a man anymore.
Not merely the orphan who had been looked down upon by the Marrows.
Not the shadow everyone dismissed without a second thought.
He was something else now.
Something inevitable.
The last Vane — reborn.
The next morning, Alaric returned to the Marrow estate with a quiet, composed air.
The same maids who once sneered at him now fumbled with their trays, unnerved by something they couldn't name.
The butlers who ignored him shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.
Even Garron Marrow, in all his arrogance, found his smug words trailing off mid-sentence when Alaric entered the room.
They didn't understand why.
They only knew something had changed.
And for the first time, it was not Alaric who bowed to the world — but the world that hesitated before him.
Late that night, as Celeste watched him from across their shared sitting room, she felt it too.
It wasn't just that Alaric seemed stronger.
It was that he was stronger — not in the way a fighter trains his body, but in the way a storm gathers at the horizon.
Something old.
Something unstoppable.
"You're different," she said finally, her voice barely above a whisper.
Alaric smiled faintly, the ghost of something ancient flickering behind his silver-flecked eyes.
"I'm remembering," he said quietly, turning his gaze toward the window — toward the sprawling city he would soon set aflame with his rising power.