The night air was restless. Clouds pressed low over the horizon, smearing the moon in streaks of silver and ash. Sid and his squad had been stationed at the southern watchpoint of the Axis grounds, a routine patrol after the turbulence of Reinhardt's near-collapse.
But something about the silence felt wrong.
Kael leaned against a broken parapet, arms crossed, eyes half-closed as though listening to a rhythm no one else could hear. The usual sparks of crackling impatience that followed him were gone, replaced by a stillness that gnawed at Sid's nerves.
"Kael," Sid finally said, "you've been quiet for too long. That usually means trouble."
Kael gave a low laugh, sharp as splintered glass. "Maybe I'm learning self-control."
Lucien smirked. "Unlikely."
The banter ended abruptly when a faint crack of thunder rolled across the sky—no stormclouds in sight. Sid stiffened, turning toward Kael. The lightning user's eyes had narrowed. He reached into his cloak and pulled out a strip of parchment burned around the edges. The seal upon it pulsed faintly: a spiraling glyph shaped like a storm's eye.
Reinhardt stepped forward. "What is that?"
Kael didn't answer immediately. His jaw tightened as though resisting some inner pull. Finally, he whispered, "A message."
The parchment dissolved into crackling sparks as he read it, the storm-mark imprinting itself against his palm before fading into his skin. His entire body gave a faint shimmer, like he'd been brushed by invisible lightning.
Lucien moved quickly, grabbing his wrist. "Who sent it?"
Kael pulled free with surprising force. "Doesn't matter."
"It does matter," Sid cut in, voice edged with authority he hadn't realized he carried. "You're part of this squad. If something's happening, we face it together."
Kael's smirk returned, but it was hollow. "Not everything can be faced together, Sid. Some storms can't be shared."
The ground trembled faintly, a resonance of Hollow energy prickling through the air. Instinctively, Reinhardt readied his weapon, Lucien's glyphs flickering faintly along his arm. But no enemy appeared. The disturbance had come from Kael himself.
For a brief moment, his body was wreathed in stormlight—faint arcs of violet lightning tracing his frame. His eyes met Sid's, sharp with unspoken words, then softened almost imperceptibly.
"Don't follow me."
And with that, Kael vanished. A single thunderclap split the night, and he was gone, leaving nothing but the acrid scent of ozone.
Silence reigned, heavy and fractured.
Reinhardt swore under his breath. "He's not deserting, is he?"
Lucien shook his head, but his expression was unreadable. "Not desertion. An order. That was a coded storm-mark. Only the inner channels of Evara's Creed use those… and they're almost always assassination orders."
Sid's stomach turned. Assassination—sent directly to Kael. From their supposed allies.
The team looked at one another, uncertainty and suspicion blooming like cracks through glass. For the first time since he'd joined them, Sid saw doubt in their eyes—not toward the enemy, but toward each other.
He clenched his fists, the Blackbind Flame whispering faintly within him, hungry to answer the fracture with fire. But he forced it down.
If we start doubting ourselves now… we're finished.
Yet the storm had already taken one of their own.