Music Suggestion:
🎵 "I'm Not Human" by Missio
(Let this play while Kyrell begins to shed the illusion of who he thought he was.)
---
Kyrell didn't remember collapsing.
When he woke, the lake was gone.
So was the moonlight.
He stood in a hollow of white ash, surrounded by trees stripped of bark, their limbs reaching skyward like they'd been burned from the inside out.
His clothes clung to him—wet with sweat, blood, or both.
And on his chest, the sigil now pulsed.
It was no longer just a mark.
It was a door.
And it had been unlocked.
He stared at his hands, flexed them—then clenched them into fists when the air shifted around him.
He was no longer lost.
He was becoming.
---
Lucian felt it.
Across every thread of magic that linked them, he felt it like a wire pulled tight across his soul.
Kyrell had changed.
Not broken. Not scared.
Awakened.
He leaned forward over the map sprawled before the High Table—thrown there not an hour ago when Thalos' relic exploded in flame.
Renak stood to one side, wary. The other elders kept a wide berth from Lucian now, murmuring of ancient oaths and rogue bonds.
But Lucian's gaze was not on them.
It was somewhere far beyond.
He whispered, "Come back to me, Kyrell. Or I'll burn through every gate they place between us."
And the fire in his chest agreed.
---
Damien saw the explosion from the ridge.
Smoke in the shape of wings.
He cursed under his breath and turned from the cliff.
They were too late.
Kyrell had touched something he wasn't meant to, and now the Council would double down.
But Lucian—Lucian would burn the sky for him.
Damien mounted his horse.
And for the first time since Kyrell returned, he felt fear.
Not for Kyrell.
For everyone else.
---
Mara crossed the ancient path beneath Mount Viren.
Her fingertips still bled.
The one she sought lived in the catacombs—one of the forgotten exiles who knew every secret of the High House.
She found him wrapped in shadows and chains.
His face bore no light.
But when he saw the blood in her hand and the madness in her eyes, he smiled.
"You wish to unmake a king," he said.
"I want to remind him what pain feels like," Mara whispered.
He tilted his head. "Then give me A name."
She did.
And the chains uncoiled like serpents.
---