Lys moved like a ghost through smoke, his red coat trailing behind him in slow, deliberate waves. Caleb charged, blade-first, slashing wide with a surge of Riftlight. Sparks of spatial distortion erupted where the two forces collided—Lys's void energy and Caleb's raw, unstable Rift power.
The impact was thunderous.
Lys countered effortlessly, summoning a long staff of blackened crystal from thin air. Its tip burned with inverted light—darkness so dense it gleamed. He blocked Caleb's strike with one end and swung the other toward Caleb's ribs.
Caleb twisted midair, barely dodging the blow. The staff grazed his side, and a wave of freezing numbness spread across his torso.
He grunted. "What the hell was that?"
"Memory venom," Lys replied calmly. "Every hit makes you forget something."
Caleb's eyes widened as the edges of his vision blurred.
No. No, not now.
He bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. Pain snapped his focus back.
"I'm not losing to some cryptic coat freak."
He lunged again. Faster this time. His dual-sided blade spun with rhythm, cutting through Rift shadows and warping the space between them. He forced Lys backward—step by step, strike by strike.
But Lys was grinning.
"You're strong," he said. "Too strong for someone just awakened. Unless…"
He blinked.
Then smiled wider.
"…unless the Rift has already chosen you."
Behind Caleb, the sky roared. A second Rift opened—higher, deeper. From within it, a spiral of tendrils reached downward, writhing like a serpent of void and storm. It didn't attack. It watched.
Caleb felt its gaze.
And something inside him… opened.
Suddenly he was somewhere else.
A field. A house. A man laughing with a young boy—his father. His real father.
Marcus Calen.
Caleb blinked as the memory dissolved. Lys's voice returned, close and cold.
"See what I mean? The Rift has plans for you."
"I don't care what the Rift wants," Caleb hissed. "I'm not its puppet."
"Then why do you hear its whispers?" Lys asked, stabbing his staff into the ground.
A pulse erupted, cracking the earth. Caleb was thrown backward, blade flying from his hand. It landed meters away, sliding under wreckage.
Lys stepped forward.
"Join me now," he said, "and I'll give you the truth your mentors won't. I'll tell you what your father really did."
Caleb, groaning, pushed himself to his feet.
"No deal."
Lys frowned. "Then die with questions."
He raised his staff.
Caleb's bracelet blinked violently—then shattered.
A surge of Rift energy burst from his chest. His eyes flared violet. His hair stood on end. His heart pounded like war drums.
The blade reformed—returning to his hand, not by movement… by will.
Caleb rose into the air, cloaked in Riftlight, eyes burning with fury.
"I'm done listening," he said.
Then he shot forward—and everything exploded.