The pain came first.
It always did.
A dull throb in his chest—like a dagger left to rust in his heart.
Kael blinked.
But the world refused to come into focus.
A ceiling of rotting wood.
The scent of damp earth and ashes.
The echo of a scream—one he wasn't sure was even his own.
His hands rose before his eyes.
Small. Trembling.
A child's hands?
Confusion crashed over him like a wave.
And with it, memory—sharp and unrelenting:
The sting of a dagger in his back.
The laughter of a friend who wasn't.
Blood spreading on the cold floor of a military base.
He had died.
He knew it with the certainty of someone who had orchestrated a thousand battles and lost the last one.
"Arion! Arion, breathe!"
A woman's voice, cracked with panic, pulled him from the void.
She leaned over him, her face gaunt and scarred—ritual burns etched into her skin like forgotten prayers.
Her soot-stained hands pressed a damp cloth to his forehead.
Mother?
No.
His mother had died decades ago. In a life that wasn't this one.
But her storm-gray eyes—filled with both love and terror—anchored him to the now.
"I'm... alive," Kael whispered.
His voice was high, thin—foreign in a child's throat.
The name Arion echoed in his mind.
It didn't belong to him.
And yet... it fit like broken armor.
Arion Vaelis.
That was who he was now.
"Don't do that again," the woman—Lirien—murmured.
Her hands trembled as she adjusted the cloth.
"The Éther... it nearly killed you."
Bloodied bandages wrapped her arms.
The bitter scent of herbs clung to the hut like smoke.
Éther.
The word stirred something ancient in him.
A knowing, buried in the bones of his soul.
He tried to rise.
Agony surged through his chest—burning, raw, endless.
He groaned.
"Don't move, little one," Lirien warned, holding him down gently.
"You're not ready."
But Kael wasn't a child.
Not truly.
He had commanded armies.
Toppled kingdoms with ink and iron.
He wouldn't lie broken on a floor.
Not again.
"What is the Éther?" he asked.
His voice steadier than his bones.
Lirien paled.
Her eyes searched his—afraid of what she might find.
"Don't ask questions you can't bear," she whispered.
"Not here. Not now."
But fate had no patience for caution.
A tremor split the earth.
The hut shook.
Heat surged in from nowhere—thick and suffocating.
Screams erupted outside.
Wood crackled.
Flames.
Lirien sprang to her feet.
She rushed to the door.
"Stay here!" she ordered.
But Kael was already dragging himself to the wall.
Pain tore through him, but he didn't stop.
Through a crack, he saw the village.
Dust.
Panic.
Children wailing.
And in the center, a figure clad in obsidian armor.
A living bonfire.
Flames danced around him.
His laughter carved through the chaos like a blade.
"Hand over the children with the gift!" he bellowed.
"Or this village will burn!"
Lord Varkis.
An emissary of the Fire Kingdom.
Kael's mind sharpened.
One man.
One threat.
But overwhelming.
The villagers were defenseless.
They were prey.
And Varkis—the hunter.
Lirien slammed the door.
Her face was ash and panic.
"Arion, hide. Now."
He stared at her.
And in that moment—he saw his other mother.
The one who begged him to run before the bombs fell.
He hadn't run then.
He wouldn't now.
"Why does he want children?" Kael asked, voice cold.
Lirien faltered.
She looked at him like she didn't recognize the soul in his eyes.
"For the Ember Academy," she spat.
"They turn them into weapons... or they break them."
She knelt.
Held his face in trembling hands.
"They can't know what you are, Arion.
The Éther is a curse.
If they find you...
they'll hunt you to the ends of the world."
The Éther.
Again that word.
But he had no time to ask.
The door exploded.
Heat surged in.
Lord Varkis entered.
Each step thundered.
Each breath reeked of smoke and malice.
His eyes—flames behind steel.
"You," he snarled. "The heretic healer. Where is the child?"
Kael didn't freeze.
He calculated.
Mage. Fire-class.
Overconfident. Predictable.
He just needed an opening.
But Lirien gave him none.
She stepped forward.
Raised her hand.
"There are no children here."
Her voice was steel wrapped in fear.
Varkis laughed.
And fire answered.
A jet of flame engulfed her.
She screamed.
Fell.
Charred and broken.
Something in Kael shattered.
Not love.
Rage.
Ancient. Boundless.
"Enough!" he roared.
The air thickened.
Time bent.
His veins ignited—not in pain, but in power.
Éther.
It surged.
And then—
A voice.
Cold.
Ancient.
"Release me, Echo... and the world will be yours."
Kael didn't understand.
Didn't need to.
He raised his hand.
And the Éther answered.
Purple light fractured the world.
Time slowed.
Varkis froze—flames frozen mid-air.
Kael stepped forward.
Each breath agony.
He unleashed the storm.
The hut exploded.
A scream of light and shadow.
Varkis's head hit the floor.
The fire died.
Silence fell.
Kael collapsed.
Hands burned.
Vision blurred.
The villagers stared in horror.
"Cursed!" a woman screamed.
"He's a heretic!"
Torches rose.
Lirien crawled to him.
Still breathing.
Barely.
She pressed something into his hand.
A broken amulet—black stone, glowing runes.
"The Éther is your strength... but also your chain," she whispered.
"Don't let it consume you."
Her eyes closed.
Gone.
Kael rose.
No tears.
No hesitation.
He ran.
Into the forest.
Into the night.
The voice of the Umbral echoed in his mind:
"The first step is taken.
Now, claim what is yours."
At the edge of the trees, he paused.
A puddle reflected his face.
His eyes—once brown—now glowed violet.
"If the world wants me dead," he whispered,
"I'll bend it to my will first."