Ash still clung to him.
Not just on his skin—inside him. Lodged behind his eyes, coating his breath. Like memory burned to soot.
Hatim stirred. Pain flared in his ribs. Cold stone pressed to his back.
Air kissed his face—cool, damp, laced with moss and rust. A low hum vibrated underfoot, deep enough to feel in his bones. Like the earth itself was waiting.
He tried to rise.
A hand rested on his chest.
"Stay down. You fought stone and lost."
Same voice from the alley. Calm. Measured.
Hatim blinked against flickering light. A single torch hissed high above, barely enough to hold the dark back. Shadows danced like whispering figures. Walls bore glyphs etched into age-blackened stone—faint, pulsing. Not decoration. Memory.
Older than the Sinks. Older than the Crowns. Carved before history had names.
The Akar here didn't burn. It breathed.
The figure beside him wore robes layered like bark. A hood masked his face, but stillness clung to him—like the room bent around his presence.
Hatim rasped, "Who are you?"
"Someone who doesn't like watching boys get folded into pavement. And someone who knows what stirred when the Akar touched you."
That last word—touched—tightened something in Hatim's chest.
Then—
A flicker.
—
Same chamber. Different light.
Red filled the space—thick and pulsing. Smoke drifted from unseen cracks. The air pressed heavy, soaked with heat and presence. Molten veins of Akar laced the walls, shifting, forming glyphs that moved like thought.
Hatim stood younger. Knees scraped. Nails blackened. Breathing sharp.
Across the chamber, another boy emerged. Barefoot. Calm.
Akar coiled at his feet like serpents made of gold.
Hatim raised his hands. Not with fear—but instinct. Glyphs traced the air, drawn without ink—only breath and thought.
Veshan. The shape whispered its name. A kinetic shield.
The boy smiled. No mirth. Just hunger.
"I don't draw," he said. "I bleed."
Dark glyphs erupted from his arms—wild, splintered, crude. Akar screamed as it bent toward him.
He roared. A blast of light detonated from his chest.
Hatim's shield flared—held—cracked.
Stone screamed. Dust burst. Hatim slid back, breath ragged.
"You're leaking," he muttered. "Your glyphs collapse as they form."
"I am the circuit."
Behind him, a jagged sigil ripped open. The air twisted. He lunged.
Hatim flowed—not flinching, but weaving.
His palm swept low—Sennari. It drank the boy's force mid-stride.
Momentum broke.
Hatim struck the ground—Tharnel. Bars of gold snapped up, locking into place.
The boy shrieked. Glyphs ripped across his skin. The cage cracked.
Hatim breathed steady. Drew two shapes—spiral and triangle. Right and left.
He dropped low, fingers carving.
The Akar leapt.
A spear surged into his hand. Etched in purpose. Born of will.
The cage shattered.
Hatim hurled the spear.
Impact. Light exploded.
The boy collapsed. Glyphs winked out.
Silence.
A voice emerged from the dark—low, sure.
"Crude. But precise. It listened."
—
The vision dissolved.
The chamber returned. Stone. Torchlight.
The hooded man sat beside him.
"You remember," he said softly.
Hatim stared, silent.
"You wonder why it lingers."
He didn't ask the next question aloud.
The Akar answered anyway—deep, steady, waiting.