Two days passed. The city worked to heal. The broken section of the wall was now covered by a crackling, temporary energy field, a constant reminder of how fragile their safety was. Kaelen threw himself into the recovery efforts, using his strength to move rubble and his Umbral energy to shore up unstable buildings. The physical labor was a good distraction from the questions swirling in his mind.
He avoided the other initiates. The fear in their eyes had been replaced by a wary distance, which was somehow worse. He was alone with his thoughts, which always circled back to Lyra's words. A birthright. A birth curse.
On the third morning, a different messenger found him. It was the same young woman from the Arcanum, her face as calm and polite as before.
"Initiate Kaelen. The High Arcanist requests your presence. She said to tell you her… research has yielded initial results."
His heart jumped into his throat. He followed her, his earlier exhaustion forgotten.
The observatory was the same. Lyra stood before her main console, but the star charts were gone. In their place was a single, official-looking document, its edges flickering with a soft, protective energy glow that indicated a classified file.
"Close the door," Lyra said, her voice tight, all traces of her usual academic excitement gone. She was solemn.
The door hissed shut. Lyra turned to him. "I searched the archives for records of Umbral aspects. They are exceedingly rare. There have been only three documented cases in Havenfall's history. Two were weak, unstable. They did not survive long." She paused, her blue eyes holding his. "The third… the third was different."
She gestured to the document. "Twenty years ago, a man named Kaelen was Awakened. His Aspect was recorded as Umbral. His manifestation was noted as exceptionally powerful. And his Curse… his Curse was listed as 'The Apex'."
Kaelen felt the air leave his lungs. Kaelen. His name. His father?
"The Apex?" he whispered.
"A theoretical extreme of your own Anchor," Lyra explained, her tone clinical but her eyes sharp. "Where your curse draws monsters to you, his was described as a form of absolute command over them. A dominance of the will. He wasn't a beacon; he was a king."
The pieces slammed together in Kaelen's mind with the force of a physical blow. His power. His rare aspect. It wasn't random. It was inherited.
"What happened to him?" Kaelen asked, his voice rough.
Lyra's face grew grim. "The records are sealed by order of the ruling council. The official entry simply states he was 'Lost to the Veil' during a mission. But the timing is… suggestive." She zoomed in on a section of the document. "His disappearance coincides almost exactly with the beginning of the 'Great Drowse'—the event that created the Slumbering Veil and shattered the world."
The world seemed to tilt. Kaelen grabbed the edge of a console to steady himself. His father. A man with power like his. A man who disappeared at the start of the apocalypse.
"There's more," Lyra said softly. She called up another, smaller file. A personnel record. It was for a woman named Elara. A younger Elara, her face less lined with sorrow, her eyes brighter. She was listed as a research assistant in the Arcanum. In the emergency contact field was a single name: Kaelen.
His mother.
The kind, sad artisan who offered him peace. She had known. All this time, she had known who he was.
The truth was a flood, washing away everything he thought he knew. He wasn't a nobody from the ruins. He was the son of two Awakened. His father was a man of immense power who vanished into the very catastrophe that broke the world. His mother was here, in the Citadel, watching over him in silence.
"Why…" he stammered, his mind reeling. "Why wouldn't she tell me?"
"That is a question you must ask her," Lyra said, her expression unreadable. "Some secrets are kept out of love. Others out of fear. I have given you the facts. The truth behind them is not mine to give."
She closed the files. The holograms vanished. "This knowledge is dangerous. There are those who would not want it uncovered. You must be careful."
Kaelen nodded, unable to speak. He turned and left the observatory, walking in a daze.
He didn't go to his room. He went to the gardens.
Elara was there, as she always was, tending to her plants. She looked up as he approached, and her gentle smile faded when she saw his face. She knew. She could see the storm of revelation in his eyes.
He stopped in front of her, the words stuck in his throat.
"You knew," he finally said, the words sounding raw. "You knew who I was. Who my father was."
Elara's hands stilled. The sadness in her eyes deepened into something ancient and weary. She didn't deny it. She simply nodded, a single, slow movement that held a world of pain.
"Yes," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "I knew."
The peaceful garden felt like a cage of lies. The woman he had seen as a refuge of kindness had been hiding the biggest truth of his life.
"Why?" The question was a plea.
Tears welled in Elara's eyes. "Because some truths are too heavy for a child to carry. And some… some are too dangerous for anyone to know."
Kaelen looked at her, the kind artisan, his mother, and for the first time, he didn't see a guide. He saw a guardian of secrets. And he understood that the path to understanding his power was paved with the hidden pain of his own family.