The cake was a masterpiece of sugar and spun-sugar light, a confectionery echo so perfect it seemed to suck the warmth from the very air. Lyra watched, her breath catching in her throat, as the baker's hands—wreathed in a faint, shimmering aura—guided the final swirl of icing into place. It was an echo of a dessert from a noble's banquet, a memory given delicious, temporary form.
"For you, young miss," the baker said, his voice strained with the effort of maintaining the complex illusion. "A happy birthday."
Lyra's mother, Elara, placed a hand on her shoulder, her touch both grounding and anxious. "It's too much, Master Fen," she said, her voice a low murmur meant only for their small party. "The cost…"
"Nonsense," the baker waved a flour-dusted hand, the shimmer around his fingers fading as he released the echo. The cake solidified, becoming real, its sugary scent now rich and tangible. "A girl only turns sixteen once. Besides, the little resonance you traded for the flour was more than fair. My joints haven't felt this good in years."
Kaelen, ever the pragmatist, was already eyeing the cake with a strategist's gaze. "It's a structural marvel. The echo-manipulation to get the layers that precise… he's at least a Rank 5 Adept. Wasting his talents in a backstreet bakery."
"Not wasted if it brings joy," Lyra countered softly, though her own heart was a conflicted drumbeat against her ribs. The display was beautiful, a rare and genuine kindness in the rain-slicked, grim world of the Iron Weald. But it was also a glaring beacon. Such overt use of magic, even the relatively benign art of Echo Manipulation, was a risk. It drew attention, and in their world, attention was a currency they couldn't afford to spend.
Her father, Ronan, stood by the window, his broad shoulders tense. He wasn't looking at the cake. His gaze was fixed on the narrow, cobbled street below, where the perpetual twilight of the city was deepening into a proper gloom. "We should eat," he said, his voice a low rumble. "The rain is coming back."
The unspoken words hung heavier than the coming storm: *And other things walk in the rain.*
The meal was a quiet affair, filled with forced cheer and the clatter of utensils. Lyra pushed the exquisite food around her plate, her appetite stolen by a gnawing sense of anticipation. This was it. The day she would finally manifest. Every child of an Arcanist bloodline did. Her parents had been Novices, her grandmother whispered to have been a low-level Adept before the Purge. Their potential had been a flickering candle. Hers, they all hoped, was a dormant star.
"It will be Resonance," Kaelen stated between bites, as if diagnosing a faulty gear. "Your spatial awareness is too acute for anything else. You'll be a natural duelist."
"Or Synchronization," Elara said, her smile not quite reaching her worried eyes. "You've always felt things so deeply, my love. A true gift for healing."
Lyra said nothing. She didn't want to be a duelist or a healer. She wanted to be like the heroes in the forbidden stories her grandmother used to tell—Nexus Walkers who could chart paths through the energy field itself, who could see the threads of possibility and weave them into new realities. A foolish, dangerous dream.
A sharp crack of thunder shook the small apartment, making them all jump. The oil lamps flickered.
Ronan was on his feet instantly. "That wasn't thunder."
Another sound followed, not from the sky but from the street below. A scream, cut brutally short. Then another. And another. It was a cascade of terror, rising through the cobblestones and into the very bones of the building.
Kaelen was at the window in a flash, his body rigid. "Regulators. A full squad. They're… they're not rounding people up. They're cutting them down." His face was pale. "They're heading this way."
The world narrowed to a single, horrifying point. The Purge wasn't a history lesson; it was a wave of blood rolling down their street.
"The back stair," Ronan barked, his calmness a terrifying contrast to the chaos outside. He moved to a loose floorboard, pulling out two small, dull metal discs. Nexus-infused shields. Low-grade, but all they had. He tossed one to Kaelen. "Elara, take Lyra. Go to the old tannery. Don't look back."
"I'm not leaving you!" Elara's voice was a raw whisper of fear.
"You will!" Ronan's voice brooked no argument. He looked at Lyra, and for a fleeting second, the fear in his eyes was entirely for her. "Whatever happens, whatever you feel, do not reach for it. Do you understand? You are nothing. You are no one. You feel nothing."
The door downstairs splintered with a sound like a dying giant. Heavy boots pounded on the steps.
"Go!" Ronan roared, shoving the table against the door. Kaelen stood beside him, the metal disc in his hand beginning to glow with a faint, desperate light—a weak Nexus Infusion meant to harden it.
Elara grabbed Lyra's arm, her grip iron-tight, and hauled her toward the rear window that led to the fire escape. Lyra's feet were leaden, her mind screaming. This was her birthday. There was supposed to be cake. There was supposed to be a future.
She glanced back just as the apartment door exploded inward.
The Regulators were nightmares given form. They wore polished obsidian armor that seemed to drink the light, and their faces were hidden behind featureless helms. They moved with a chilling, unified purpose, their movements enhanced by the brutal, amplified strength of Resonance magic. One backhanded Ronan's makeshift shield, and the infused metal shattered like glass. Ronan cried out, stumbling back.
Kaelen lunged, not with magic, but with a chef's knife snatched from the table. He was fast, his movements a blur of precisely trained motion. He actually dodged the first Regulator's strike, the knife scraping harmlessly off the dark armor. For a heartbeat, he was a hero from a story.
Then a second Regulator simply pointed a gauntleted hand. There was no flash, no sound. But Kaelen froze mid-step, a choked gasp escaping his lips. His eyes went wide with an agony that was not physical. Synchronization. But twisted, invasive. A violation used as a weapon. Lyra felt a sickening echo of her brother's terror, his mental walls being crushed, his very self being unmade. It was a pressure in her own skull, a scream that wasn't hers