The flash was not a natural light. It was the white-hot, furious death-glare of a semi-truck headlight, magnified by a pane of glass and the terror in Lena's eyes. Elias's last, clear memory was squeezing her hand, a final, futile gesture against the crushing sound of metal yielding.
Then, there was only cold.
Kael Varrus, who was Elias seconds earlier, gasped. The air he drew in was thin, stale, and tasted faintly of iron and disinfectant. His lungs burned, but his new body, lean and conditioned, obeyed the command to sit up with brutal efficiency.
He was on a narrow cot in a barracks the size of a municipal hangar. The walls were unadorned gray stone, carved with the geometric precision of the Citadel's architects. Everything spoke of discipline: the crisp folds of the blankets on the neighboring cots, the ordered racks of uniformed gear, the low, humming glow of the fluorescent lanterns mounted high on the ceiling.
Where is Lena?
The question wasn't a memory or a worry; it was a physical wound—a sudden, agonizing void where her soul had once been an anchor. The separation wasn't just physical; it felt energetic, like being torn from his own gravity.
He tried to push the panic down, using the structured mental training he dimly recognized as belonging to this body. Assess. Analyze. Identify threat.
The current threat was the disorientation. The secondary threat was the shadow in the corner.
It clung to the intersection of the floor and the northern wall—a patch of darkness so dense, so absolute, that it seemed to be actively consuming the artificial light. It pulsed faintly, a soft, hypnotic blackness, promising silence, invisibility, and escape. It was pure chaos distilled into a visible form.
The Shadow. The instinct was immediate and overwhelming: reject it.
In his previous life, Elias had been a man of spreadsheets and blueprints; he hated the unpredictable. This power, this Shadow Tether, felt like the opposite of everything he valued. It felt like the accident itself—random, destructive, and ultimately, what had cost him Lena.
A heavy boot slammed the stone floor beside his cot.
"On your feet, Varrus! That's an L2 infraction for tardiness. Did the shame of your failure rot your brain too?"
The speaker was Commander Voren, Kael's former mentor, a man whose presence was as rigid as the Citadel stone. His expression, however, was laced with weary suspicion, not just anger.
Kael's new body reacted before his mind could formulate an answer. He snapped to attention, executing a perfect, spine-straightening salute that felt foreign and sickening.
"Apologies, Commander. Disorientation. It won't happen again."
Voren scoffed, reaching out with a leather-gloved hand to grip Kael's arm. "You've been given a second chance, Kael. Don't waste it brooding in the dark corners like an Apostate. The Citadel values order."
The moment Voren's hand clamped down, Kael felt the world compress. The proximity to the Inquisitor's rigid energy amplified the chaos Kael was fighting within himself. His panic surged, and his will recoiled from the touch.
He channeled the recoil toward the only available exit: the Shadow.
It wasn't a deliberate cast. It was a panicked expulsion of energy, a frantic attempt to create distance. The Shadow Tether rushed from the corner, momentarily enveloping Kael's arm and Voren's hand like cold smoke.
ARC L2.I: Apprentice, Novice. The uncontrolled burst was painful, exhausting, but utterly effective.
For one second—a moment stretched by Shadow magic—Kael's inner Insight (The Sight) activated. He saw the world in structural patterns: the stress points in Voren's armored glove, the geometric flow of the Citadel's electrical conduit running beneath the floor, and the precise, coded rhythm of Voren's breathing. He could see how everything was built.
Then, the Shadow vanished. The sheer effort of channeling even that small burst of darkness slammed Kael with a wave of fatigue that made his muscles twitch.
Voren gasped, snatching his hand back. A perfect, circular black burn mark was etched into the leather of his glove.
"What was that, Varrus?" Voren's voice was low, lethal, no longer disciplinary but deeply suspicious. "That was not standard Aura-suppression training."
Kael immediately forced his energy inward, desperately trying to lock the Shadow back down. The physical pain was secondary to the mental terror. If Voren reported this, Kael would be executed for using forbidden magic.
"A stumble, sir," Kael repeated, his voice strained. "My apologies. My balance is still… compromised."
Voren studied the burn mark, then Kael's face—not the face of Elias, but the handsome, grim face of the soldier Kael Varrus.
"Compromised is right," Voren growled. "You carry the scent of chaos on you, Kael. We are the Iron Citadel. We fight chaos with structure. Get cleaned up. You have a double shift on the Sky-Bridge armory. We will see if the discipline of iron can burn out the darkness in you."
Kael saluted again, the action automatic. As Voren strode away, Kael stumbled back against the stone wall. His heart was hammering. He was a Shadow Weaver, an Apostate, a carrier of chaos, and he was trapped in the heart of the world's most rigid, anti-magic military force.
He subtly reached into his pocket, his hand closing around the only thing that felt real: the memory of Lena's hand in his. I will master this Shadow, but only long enough to find the light that was torn away from me. His starting quest—finding Lena—had just become a desperate, tactical fight for survival against his own power, deep within the enemy's walls.